Foxfire
by Byakugan789
Summary: When a young Naruto comits suicide things don't exactly go as planned and the Kyuubi does somthing that will shake the foundations of shinobi world, forever.
1. Reentry

Foxfire

By

Byakugan

Disclaimer: Whinnie the Poo was stuffed with fluff and was a cheerful fellow, I don't own the Naruto manga do I don't have that luxury. A good rule of thumb, if you recognize it either somebody else owns it, has done it first or thought along a similar path. Don't sue me, you'll spend more in court costs than I can actually provide if you won.

Authors Note: I've read literally thousands of Naruto fan fiction as Likely have many of you, but an over arching theme I have found in the reading is that only one in 30000 authors actually write Naruto, even from the beginning, as the character he is and becomes in the manga or anime. There's a lot of similarities, certainly, and a great many authors blindly dog the plot to a degree that doesn't make any sense when you think of what they've changed over the course of the story, but they don't honestly write Naruto. I have attempted to do so many times myself and failed I finally just decided to forgo the attempt entirely and write as I know how. Some things will be crack, others will be presumptuous and all the events and setup that led up to the point of Naruto's birth will be present. From there till the story start the only difference will be my best logic of the early life for a female Naruto. No not naruko or any variant there of, Naruto's name was decided several months before his birth and wouldn't need to change for being born Kushina's daughter instead of Minaito's son.

.o0OXO0o.

Alexander West woke up slumped against a wall, feeling light headed and sticky. Struggling through the motions he lifted his right arm to press against his screaming skull and groaned in protest, wincing as the noise reached his ears.

Something about his head felt off but he shoved the matter to the side for the moment in order to deal with the far more important problem of what, exactly, he had done last night that could have gotten him in such a miserable state.

Sitting there for a few minutes Alex drew in a few deep breaths and tried to focus through the haze. There had been a party, that was it… but what had the party been for? Pushing further into the murk a few more details began to make themselves clear. He and his coworkers had been drinking heavily celebrating the release of Diablo three.

He had been a part of the world building team, crafting character effects and abilities, balancing classes and helping to make the rules for the games magic. It was hard to remember through the blur of shots but they had gotten to nearly hundred thousand copies sold by the time he stopped remembering things.

After that the only thing he could remember was a sense of movement and then a bright light.

Had he been in a car accident? That could explain how shitty he was feeling, and the sticky sensation too… that would be the blood. He thought absently.

Daring to open his eyes Alex was granted with a fuzzy image that most certainly did not match his proposed situation.

Alex sat there blinking the image into focus and felt numb. He was in a small apartment he didn't recognize, sitting in a pool of blood and literally covered in the substance. If that wasn't frightening enough the position of the knife on the floor and the various wounds on his body suggested that the entire episode had been, not only self inflicted, but done by an expert masochist who had finally lost sight of the line between self flagellation and suicide.

The fact that he was still alive, his wounds dried and unbleeding was frankly unbelievable. Not strike that, he thought, tracing one of the red lines on his forearms, make that impossible. Clearing the blood away had not only not started the bleeding anew, but had revealed red lines of fresh scar tissue.

It was during this stunned examination that Alex noticed something truly wrong. The hands tracing his wounds were not his own.

Alex was very familiar with his hands, they were large and strong and callused from his martial arts hobby. They typed over a hundred words a minute in complicated programming languages without missing a beat or mistyping a character.

The hands that followed his will now were not those hands.

These hands were small and tanned, their soft skin speaking of a much unwanted youth. They were the hands of a child. Maybe six or seven lest he miss his guess. Hands like his nieces.

He shuddered and returned said hands to his head, seeking out the disturbance in his equilibrium he had found earlier. Reaching it Alex carefully, or rather weakly, pulled the material out before his eyes for further study.

It was hair.

Long, thick, matted and dark, both from an apparent period of neglect and liberal amounts of his own blood. The hair was a deep shade of crimson and felt almost springy like wire or wool, but judging form the grease and dirt in the material the feeling was probably just from the grime.

With a great effort he rolled onto his hands and knees and looked around the room. Spotting a mirror He crawled his way over to it, smearing a trail of congealing blood and handprints in his wake. Reaching the long reflective sheet of slivered glass nailed to the door to the apartments toiletries he shakily shoved himself into a quasi kneeling position, his weight resting against the door via his shaking arms.

Again he starred at a piece of his body that was not his own. The face before him was defiantly that of a seven year old, one with a long mass of thick red hair tumbling down their back in a massive series of snarls and tangles. It was best described as a rats nest. The eyes and cheeks caught him though. The eyes were a bright cerulean blue, currently large and wide in their starring and the cheeks were adorned with six thin, inward curving scars. There they sat, three on each cheek like whiskers of a cat or fox.

Fox.

The word struck a chord in his memory and Alex roughly shoved himself away from the mirror to stumble upright into the bathroom. Alex's mind was whirling. Under most circumstances he would have simply assumed that this was a death delusion his mind was generating for him to take his mind off his imminent demise in the wreck. The presence of himself covered in blood could easily have been explained by his mind being unable to process out the supremely cut up state of his still living body…

What didn't make sense was why he dreaming himself as a suicidal red headed Naruto. Then again he could be Kushina, he mused absently, falling against the wall of the shower, but there was too little written about Naruto's mother and one thing had been certain. None of the pictures of her has given the girl whisker marks.

Turning the hot water tap Alex yelped as he was blasted with cold water. Of course, he grumbled. No hot water for several seconds when you turn the tap on; if at all because this is Naruto. Stripping and throwing the now sopping garments out on the floor Alex discovered another problem. 'He' was a girl.

Shit.

Not that there was anything wrong with being a girl in general but if this was a delusion why would he want to be one? Especially one so young and without curves? And if, as he was beginning to consider, this wasn't a near death fantasy how had he gotten into this body and why wasn't his new incarnation a boy? Spiritually speaking a moving soul would naturally be more attracted to a similar host body. Past life memories awoken by traumatic stress seemed a more likely avenue as possessing spirits couldn't usually repair a body in any fiction he'd read and Naruto's own healing factor, if it could have saved him (her rather), would likely have prevented possession as well. Probably locking him into the seal in the attempt.

Now there was an appetizing thought.

Alex/Kushina/Naruto sat there in the shower for several hours until the hot water ran out, his/her thoughts swirling. The how's and whys were playing havoc on his/her mental focus but by the time the water had gone cold s/he had come up with a place to start.

A fair amount of his/her strength had come back during the shower; the water had tasted unusually good so this probably meant his/her healing factor had used the clear liquid as material to replace his/her lost blood. Stopping briefly at the mirror s/he noticed the faint pink line across his/her throat. It had been raw red when s/he'd gone in. Examining the lines his/her arms, stomach and joints s/he found them to be fading as well.

Impressive.

Absently musing on the level of healing s/he had just displayed Alex began searching for some sort of journal or diary. Most girls had them and the volumes tended to be quite enlightening about the state of the people within. Though for the most part diaries had become electronic where he'd come from he still remembered the common lengths' and places his sisters had taken to hiding them from prying eyes.

Three hours later he struck gold. Hidden behind a loose and apparently unused ventilation cover was a scroll. It was blank and unmarked like many in the apartment but opening it proved immediately interesting. Within was the detailed account of a girl who was terrified of her home and questing for answers. Maps of various sections of the village were common, typically detailing danger levels and attitudes of shopkeepers and home owners in the area along with detailed impressions of the character of the people who went in and out based almost wholly around their eyes.

Records of attacks were uncommon among the entries, which covered nearly four years, but they often ended in mention of a black suited figure with a white festival mask taking her attacker away. Then four and a half months ago things changed. One of the store keepers who had caught her trading in their store during the night while they should have been sleeping the previous week had cornered her in an alley. Inu-kun had not gotten there in time, likely distracted by the fox day festival, and she had learned the ugly truth.

Or at least part of it.

The old man had told her about the Kyuubi and how the truth of the confrontation had been covered up. He accepted that she wasn't the monster but still believed the only true way to protect the village from it's return was for her to die. He had hit her and was pulling down his pants when blood had exploded from his chest, drenching her. Inu-kun had finally arrived.

The following entries had become steadily darker. Alex frowned at this. If he was reading the entries right she had told old man Ichiraku about everything. Teuchi had tried to console her and likely prolonged her life these last four and a half months. But it hadn't been enough; now that she knew what to look for the weight of the villagers disapproval and fear had become stifling.

Alex snorted sadly. The poetry was good at least. Somewhere between Evanescence and Breaking Benjamin. Alex sighed and rerolled the journal. The last entry had been an epitaph… This would go some short length to explaining the question of why him and not someone who had been heroic in their previous life, Naruto had never been destined to be particularly heroic in this world either. The goddess had needed a relatively normal soul to fill a doomed space until it moved on to the next life.

Apparently she hadn't counted on the Kyuubi's own drive for survival.

Carefully restoring the scroll to it's place Axel drew in a deep breath and closed his/her eyes. When s/he opened them again there was a look of determination on the small girls face tinged with a slight hint of evil. Let me be reborn into a world with magic will you? Heading for the apartment door Alex made a decision, s/he was used to making the rules, but now, it was time to learn some.

"Time to make some waves."

.o0OXO0o.

Standing on a ledge created by one of the hair spikes of the Hokage monument Alex raised a hammer and got to work. As best Alex's interpretations' went, most of this Naruto's problems stemmed from the same basis as the original model from the comics. People knew who her; knew her and didn't like her.

This wasn't a universal constant though, nor was it an insurmountable problem as both the comic books and Naruto-chans own scroll had shown. Most of the animosity in the village was centered around civilian families who had lost someone to the Kyuubis short release during Kushina's pregnancy. Most of the Village nin appeared indifferent to the situation due to their professional understanding that shit happens and she was as much a sacrifice in the event as her parents had been . Others were sympathetic and a few, who had lost team members in the attack, were openly resentful of her existence.

Give it a decade on the original path and she'd be the village icon.

Unfortunately, Alex didn't want to wait a decade of thankless bullshit to become a hero. After all, why go to all the effort when reinventing your self was so much easier?

This however came with it's own complications. If s/he wasn't going to be Naruto, s/he couldn't very well live at Naruto's apartment, that would simply be too obvious to anyone seeking out either identity. So s/he need to get a new premises'; but doing that meant having an identity and money, two things s/he didn't have. Even with unconsensual night time trading Naruto's stipend from the Hokage didn't cover everything and s/he only had a few thousand yen left at the moment anyways.

So, the monument. It would likely take him/her a few days but the soft, chakra-sculpted sandstone had already given way to a rough one foot deep door way with half an hour of pounding it with a hammer covered in cloth to deafen the sound of metal against stone the only thing to give him/her away would be the dust that would soon begin piling on the ground below the fourths ear.

Alex began humming as s/he worked, thinking on what all would need to be done to set up his/her new life. First there was the legal documentation. S/he'd need a profile, something simple that people wouldn't look to closely at. An orphan street rat would likely work best. There were plenty of those from the third great Shinobi war and the Kyuubi attack that had followed it, pick a different birthday for her medical records and that should settle it. A civilian family too, traveling merchants killed in some attack seemed the best way to go about it. The hardest part about the whole thing wouldn't be entering the necessary documents into the hospital or orphanage but rather making them look like they had been there six and a half years. S/he intended to apply for the academy once everything was set up and s/he couldn't have the Hokage do that for him/her like the original had if s/he wanted to avoid the stigma of being Naruto.

Pulling out a strip of beef jerky s/he had 'bought' on the way here Alex began slowly chewing on it as s/he worked, absentmindedly noticing the distance into the stone. A good five feet. Glancing at the watch on his/her wrist s/he saw the timer hit four hours and 21 minutes since start. About a foot an hour, not bad. S/he'd have to start expanding inward soon, the head was only thirty feet wide, give or take a few.

Looking at his/her hand as it swung the tool like a jackhammer with short hard taps at the sandstone Alex considered things. Having a plan was all well and good, but what to call herself? And it would be her s/he decided sullenly, as faking being her natural gender would very quickly become very difficult once she reentered society. As easy as it would be to fool a civilian prior to puberty, Ninja and medics had a decidedly different take on the world that meant they'd pick out the ruse sooner rather than later.

Fast, Alex mused, watching the hammer. If he'd been himself he could only have kept up this pace for a few minutes but with Naruto's stamina and healing s/he'd been going at it for hours without stop. It was almost like watching something out of Ranma ½. Kaichu Tenshin Amigurican, if memory served. Ranma… Yes, that would work, Ranma Saotome would be her new alias. Tasteful clothing style, easy personality to remember, she even looked the part. Red hair, blue eyes, Kushina's promise of being buxom in the future and a career of an aspiring Ninja.

Over the next few hours Alex pounded and swept away the foundations of her new home. Finally reaching 15 feet she turned a sharp left and hammered the outline of the front door. This accomplished she ate the rest of the jerky, finished off her large sack of water, lay down her tools and pulled out a bed roll. It was time to sleep. It was noon now, so a good eight hours and it would be safe to begin operations again.

Laying down Alex closed her eyes, and dreamed.

.o0OXO0o.

While Alex slept the village was in a uproar. At eight in the morning one of the store keepers s/he had 'purchased' items from that night had come to Naruto's apartment and started banging on the door. Quickly getting fed up with the lack of answer he man had broken the lock and stormed in demanding reparations far in excess of the actual value of the goods before freezing at which point the old man had promptly run back out screaming at the top of his lungs.

Within an hour the entire village knew that the 'demon' was missing and all that had been found at it's apartment had been a enormous pool of drying blood. The general consensus around the village was that the demon had finally lost the fight against it's human shell and died, tearing the body apart like the original had and cursed the building like the Kyuubi's rapidly decaying body had cursed the forest of death.

The ANBU were considerably more suspicious and, under orders from the Hokage, made a thorough and in-depth examination of the area. It was concluded even before finding Naruto's diary that there was far too little evidence of fowl play to make an accusation of murder and the secondary stain and accompanying presence and position of a kunai did indeed suggest suicide. Due to the lack of body, money, cloths and bedroll however the Hokage was convinced of either flight or kidnapping and so both options were thoroughly investigated. When nothing turned up over the next several weeks and scanning the countryside with the Eye of Urna revealed only a grey fog, Sarutobi Hiruzen was forced to conclude the worst.

The village as a whole however was ecstatic. Much to the ire of the Hokage, a great festival commemorating the Kyuubi's death was put together. The third tried to arrest those involved but finding his jails full and the population of party goers barely dented he reluctantly let it go. Naruto's name was summarily added to the list on the memorial stone and her files sealed.

The only people who stayed calm through out all of this was, mysteriously, Ichiraku's Ramen stand. The restaurant had been steadily loosing business over the last three years due to Naruto's presence despite being well known in the village for the skill of it's cook. As such many of the more vindictive villagers make a private point to visit the stand in the time following the demon brats disappearance and eat a bowl or two in toast to Naruto's apparent death.

Luckily none of them ever went back past the bar of the establishment.

During all of this, Alex used the chaos of the situation to start insinuating herself into Kanohan society. Old paper was found, documents were forged and filed, items went missing, rooms behind the Hokage monument were dug and a new look was crafted.

And thus, Saotome Ranko was made ready to be born.

.o0OXO0o.

**Darre alla Luce**.

Standing guard duty at the gate was a singularly thankless task. Three eight hour shifts of pure and utter boredom. Honestly, what did it matter that a few chunin were at the massive double doors to the village? The occasional civilian going in and out was hardly worth notice and the sages maintaining the Yamanaka's chakra ward around the valley would long ago have alerted the village to anyone of importance nearing the 'hidden' village. In such an event a quartet of chunin would hardly be useful Nara Yuri reasoned. This was pointless, why had she put in the effort to become chunin if this was the reward?

Sighing, she cracked open an eye as the methodical crackle of a pair of shoes against dirt alerted her to the approach of another human. Opening her eyes she snorted at the sight that greeted her. Running toward them, and smiling a sickeningly cute smile was a little red hair girl. The child's long red hair was pulled back in an economic braid which whipped behind her back as her feet pattered quickly across the wide dirt path towards the gates. She wore a loose red button up shirt and black drawstring pants meant for a child several years her senior.

There were really only two thing that distinguished the girl any of the dozen or so other people who went through the gates every day. First, she was alone; and second, she was hugging a katana that was easily half again as tall as her. Yuri took a quick glance at the girls cheeks and seeing both a sprinkling of freckles and a distinct lack of whisker marks she brushed off the idea. It had been a month since Naruto's disappearance and had Yuri been a suspicious person the girls presence would have been setting off all sorts of red flags, but as it was she was tired and the kid was whiskerless.

Standing up she walked a few paces forward, her hands jammed in the pockets of her vest. She towered over the child as it came to a stop, staring up at her with a wide eyed smile. "Hey kid."

"Hiya! Are you a ninja?"

Raising an eyebrow at the question she replied. "Yes."

"Cool! The man said girls could be ninja!" she chirped. "I wanna be a ninja too! Can you teach me?"

"Where are your parents kid?" Yuri asked calmly, glancing at her fellow chunin.

"Bandits killed them…" the little girl replied quietly. "But a ninja man with blue hair saved me. So now I wanna be a ninja too!"

Yuri nodded. This wasn't too uncommon an occurrence, every academy class had at least one student with a similar story. Most of them didn't make it though, failing out of the academy and apprenticing themselves to local artisans. Running through a series of genjutsu dispelling techniques the young Nara made a decision. Another quick set of seals later and her shadow flowed out, expanding and pooling in front of her. The chibi stepped back, eyes wide as a photo negative of Yuri rose from the center of the darkness.

"My clone will take you to the admissions office. There's a program there to set you up with the essentials and get you into the academy but you'll need to find a job while you're here. As much as we support new additions to the village we aren't a charity and you aren't an employee until you graduate the academy. Don't worry though, admissions will help you with that too. Probably something simple like house cleaning or other chores too small for genin teams to break their teeth on."

As the girl and clone started walking off Yuri was struck by a sudden and unusual bout of curiosity. "Hey, kid." Both figures stopped and turned around. "What's your name?"

"Ranko." The little girl smiled. "Saotome Ranko."

.o0OXO0o.

Alex/Naruto/Ranko sat in the admissions office chewing absently on a matsuri. It was a lot better than s/he had expected, a lot like scallops but rubbery and significantly more salty. The taste aside it was the fact that s/he had gotten the deep-fried squid in the first place that was important. If Naruto's diary was correct she had never been able to buy a snack from the street vendors, even at the exorbitant increases those who normal serviced the girl had charged. Playing the cute orphan card was defiantly a skill Naruto had been denied and something s/he could easily get used to.

S/he snorted, take one not quite so faked death, add in a new visual style and sprinkle it with a different personality and it was amazing how much things changed. Then again, something similar a dozen or so times over the course of your standard high school graduating class. Still, s/he thought looking over the list of job openings, It was downright nerve wracking when people up and down the street had starred at him/her for several seconds on a sort of confused half recognition, as if they knew him/her but couldn't place where from.

Pausing mid-chew as her gaze settled on Ichiraku Ramen, Alex decided it didn't really matter. Until the ANBU arrested him/her s/he really had almost free reign on the village and honestly, with the way the old man did his best to dote on Naruto in the original comics it wasn't too likely the old goat would so suddenly break his/her cover like that when the reports danced by him. Proper and honorable treatment were after all what he had intended for the fourths child when he had explained the situation in the first place.

Reaching the end of the list Alex looked up and down the side quickly, focusing on the applications that had looked most interesting. The fund for orphan nin-candidates was fairly small, but it would set them up with housing in a small barracks or hole in the wall apartment, tutoring fees and basic food and amenities for a week after which they were expected to take on a small part time job to sustain themselves.

It seemed a little harsh to Alex but looking at the comics s/he could easily see why it might be like this. First, just like the chunin had told him/her at the gate, Konoha was not a charity despite, or perhaps in spite of, it's reputation for being considerably kinder than the other villages. Second, it would teach the children a useful trade in the event they didn't pass the academy. Something that was fairly common if most interpretations of Kakashi's ultimatum were to be believed. And finally, what did you do once you made it out of the academy? If the chunin exams arc was any indication few non clan nin made it past Genin and D rank missions couldn't possibly pay for everything; they were only chores after all.

Ichiraku ramen was apparently still offering him/her their support by putting out a call for a dishwasher. This had it's own advantages as it would provide easy access to their assorted ramen bowls and continue the rapport s/he was developing with Ayame.

The Kashiwagi shinobi foundries was another option. A small time weapons manufacturer, the Kashiwagi smith was a retired kenjutsu specialist who now made a living creating and repairing custom weapons for the villages more eclectic ninja. The add was asking for a forge hand to help with the bellows and other apprentice level smith duties. This would play well in to a few things s/he had planned for the future, such as a chakra-steel katana to replace the cheap one she had stolen while the village was still in a tizzy about his/her 'death'.

The Yamanaka flower shop was looking for and extra hand to keep their beds weeded and tend the counter on a regular basis. Perhaps not the most interesting job, but it would be useful in teaching him/her about useful herbs and give him/her a reason to interact with Ino outside of classmate status. Which would likely end up being very useful.

There was also a call for a bus girl at a small Yakatori s/he knew to be frequented by the Ino-Shika-Cho clans as well as a fair number of other nin. The gossip alone would be worth working there as it would keep him/her up to date on all goings on in the village as well as providing both ideas on techniques and tactics from listening to customers recount stories, and give a reason to associate with Shikamaru, Choji and, again, Ino.

Finally there was the Master Stroke ink shop. Your one stop shop for all things fuinjutsu, of so the manager claimed. They were currently looking for someone to mill herbs for ink, but it also afforded the promise of teaching said hire how to craft a variety of seals and the theory behind them. Every ninja chunin and over was beaten in with the basic of storage seals and basic explosive tags but things like security seals, medical fuin and summoning scrolls were something only learned by those who dedicated their time to the art. The literal possibility of being able to do anything with a couple of brush strokes had Alex salivating.

After nearly two and a half hours deliberation Alex decided on working for the ink shop. The current owner had moved in as an apprentice a year after the Kyuubi attack and held Naruto little animosity beyond distrust of the village pariah. According to Naruto's scroll she had only been there a few times but the man had made her uncomfortable by watching her like a hawk as she went about making her purchases. The prices the man had charged were the same as the ones on the labels but he had made a point to test her money for counterfeiting. A six year old, counterfeiting; honestly.

Walking up to the woman at the desk Alex hopped up on the stool she had been provided and informed the clerk of her selection. The woman smiled at her warmly and handed her a sheet of paper, walking her through filling out the form. Once done she told Alex to show up at the shop at noon the next day for an interview with the owner.

Accepting a key and marked map from the woman Alex left the office.

.o0OXO0o.

Seven months later.

'Ranko' sat in the back of the class room absently listening to the lecture on shinobi history and staring at Sasuke. Or perhaps more accurately, the ducks butt on the back of his head. It was strange how the boys hair managed to look like that even in real life, weren't such hair styles supposed to be impossible in reality? They'd never worked at the anime conventions without wires and copious amounts of gel…

Shaking herself the self named Saotome returned her thoughts to their original path. Sasuke. The boy was going to be a problem for her if things followed the pattern from the manga. They had turned 8 recently and in less than a year his elder brother was going to kill three of her classmates and nearly five hundred assorted ninja and civilians living under the Uchiha banner. She had actually been surprised by the sheer number of Uchiha in Kanoha once everything started to settle down enough for her to resume Naruto's earlier investigations. It really said a lot about how much of an impact Itachi and Madera's massacre was going to have on the village. Driving Sasuke to insanity aside, the Kanoha Military Police was staffed almost in it's totality by the clan, being followed distantly by the Hyuuga and Inuzuka.

The problem she decided wasn't how to stop it but rather how to fix the situation. She couldn't simply go to Itachi and try to argue thing with him, she had little doubt he had tried to do that himself against the councilors in the original timeline and it hadn't worked then either. She couldn't simply kill Sasuke either as much as that would simplify things; Itachi would, as in the manga, likely swear to return and kill the rest of the village if his brother met his fate early so that was out.

No, the best option would be to make sure the brat didn't break down unto a gibbering self-destructive mess. The question was how. Logically the best way to go about this would be to stop Sasuke from witnessing his parents deaths but there in lay the question, had he witnessed them in the first place? Sure Itachi had shown him their deaths in a recurring loop until it drove the boy insane but none of the fans had ever been able to agree on whether or not he had actually witnessed it. If that was the catalyst for the timeline it would be a simple matter to brain the boy on his way home that night and hide him till Itachi left, but if the older boy had killed everyone first and then shown Sasuke the memory there was really little chance of changing things there.

"_the shame of a parents scolding can hardly compare to the pain of being alone_" The words from the manga ran through Ranko's head and she considered them carefully. As he sat now Sasuke had been a fairly friendly boy, and appeared to make friends easily. He'd been pleasant when she approached him but offered little interest otherwise, already obsessed with the dream of being a ninja and rushing off to rescue princesses and hunt bandits with his older brother. Loud, obnoxious, friendly and only slightly superior in attitude. All in all a normal kid from a well off family, albeit one whose family business revolved around magic and killing people.

Being alone. Those were his words, the pain of being alone. The words tumbled through her mind like lessons on chakra as Ranko examined them from all angles. If she couldn't stop the massacre or kill the spore then the next best thing to get rid of him would be to give him something to balance out the soulless monster he would eventually become. If he sought power to quiet the loneliness and further his quest for vengeance the most logical path would be to make sure he couldn't be lonely. The question was how to go about it. While her story of being orphaned by bandits would likely help her get close to the boy Ranko shuddered at the thought of becoming any sort of a focus for the once and possibly future sociopath.

The best possibility would be to save several Uchiha from the district prior to the attack. But who? Stealing an Uchiha was simple enough, like the Inuzuka, Hyuuga and other large clans there lay a minimum of one in each of the academies six grade levels. The twins Han and Chiba in their class along with Sasuke, Megumi in the class ahead of them, Jiro, Nami and Kuzuki in the next class up and a few others she didn't know the name of along with several dozen each genin and chunin that she'd noticed wandering around the clans district.

Kidnapping a person was hardly difficult, even for someone of her light frame. All she really head to do was hide in a shadow and brain them with a frying pan when their guard was down. Ninja danger sense was based on intent and without a will to kill it wouldn't be triggered leaving her free to bash their unprotected heads in. After all, an unguarded ninja meant one that had no reason to use one of those ridiculous durability spells they were so fond of.

Her course now decided the problem became keeping the theft from being noticed and reacted to which was something else entirely. Closing her eyes and concentrating Ranko reviewed the episode details. Itachi had attacked on the night of a harvest moon several months after Sasuke's 8th birthday. Sasuke had had school that day and came home late from playing with his kunai at Itachi's personal range. She had no idea where that was though. Moving on, the morning of the attack Itachi had had a loud argument with his father, showing rare and explosive emotion about something or other. A focus of the episode had been when he'd nearly shattered the wall outside his house with a single kunai. That was good, it would give her a time for reference. The exact timing of the battle was vague but it was generally agreed that it had begun some time around dusk so she'd either need to have her selections gone by then or be ready to move fast.

Who to save then? …A parent? No, Itachi had made a point to kill both his parents specifically and honestly she had no interest in saving Fugaku, he was even worse than Hiashi's public face. Mikoto, possibly, but again as one of the weasels prime targets it seemed a little too risky. Who could she take without him coming back to kill them?

"SAOTOME!" Ranko twitched in surprise to see the teacher, Mr. Tenou glaring at her through the big demonic head genjutsu the academy instructors were want to use. "If this lesson is so truly boring to you that you'd prefer to stare at young Sasuke all day then perhaps you could come up here and demonstrate the proper use of the transformation spell." Growling deep in her throat at being interrupted, Ranko immediately applied her mask and bounced to the front of the class. Standing in front of the instructor bouncing on the balls of her feet she looked up at him expectantly. "Turn into an important historical figure of the shinobi world and explain their significance." The Chunin commanded.

Closing her eyes Ranko concentrated, remembering the lessons earlier that year where she had been immediately advanced through two years of classes to Narutos old seat and grinned and idea forming. Meditate, calm your mind and look within yourself the instructor had told her, flaring his own chakra. Search for this feeling, feel it circling, twisting in your gut and becoming something more. For most children it had taken the better part of a year after learning proper meditation and searching for the same feeling as the glowing teacher gave off within themselves. For most it was like dragging two dogs toward each other and tying their leashes together as they struggled first to find and then bind together the energies of chi and rei to create chakra; for her it had been like a release. The chakra was already there, waiting for her to open up and remove the pressure. Though the thought always made her blush it honestly felt like taking a piss after holding it all day.

Her power accessed she began to focus it as they had been taught last month. Forming a picture in her mind and seals with her hands she bent the chakra till it wrapped around her snapping into place and warped her flesh to mach her will. Opening her yellow slit-pupiled eyes Ranko gazed out at the class from a higher perspective and grinned. Before the class a rough facsimile of Orochimaru bounced and waved to the class happily. "Hi!" she chirped, her voice not having changed as she had been unsure what it should sound like. "My name is Orochimaru, and I like snakes! I'm the third member of the densetsu no sannin and a hero of the Third Great Shinobi War!" The teacher spluttered at this causing 'Orochimarus' grin to widen further. "Despite being the most powerful and skilled ninja in Konoha I'm a jealous, narcissistic pedophile and sociopath obsessed with the idea of immortality. After losing my seat as Hokage to Minaito Namikaze I began openly kidnapping and experimenting on leaf citizens until I was driven from the village by Hiruzen Sarutobi. I am currently at large and likely seeking revenge on Konoha with a price of nearly 830 million Yen on my head. If you see me you are ordered to flee on sight and contact the nearest fire nation authorities. OUCH!"

"How do you know all that brat! Half of that info is an A class secret!"

Ranko pouted, her polymorph having been dispelled with the strike. "No it's not!" she shot back, petulantly, knowing it probably was. "It was all in that picture book the blue hair ninja who saved me had! And why is it called a bingo book anyways? You can't play bingo on it, there's no board or numbers!"

Tenou Hiro pinched the bridge of his nose and prayed to Kami for patience. "Go back to your seat." he ground out finally. "As punishment for goofing off in class I expect a six page essay on the Third Great Shinobi War on my desk by the end of the week." Ranko walked back to her seat with a slight frown of annoyance, the essay would put a crimp in her schedule for the next few days which was really a pity since she had finally finished excavating the service tunnels to her grotto and she'd been looking forward to lounging in her new shower for a few hours tonight.

The distraction of class successfully averted Ranko resumed her musings. It would have to be children she decided finally. For starters they were easier to kidnap, she mused floating a leaf in an orbit around her upright hand. They were smaller, lighter, unobservant, naive and easily susceptible to unconsciousness with a minimal amount of material or effort. For another thing they were the most likely target to survive not if but rather when Itachi heard that there was more than his little brother. Despite his slaughter of the children in his clan most of Itachi's cameo appearances had shown him denouncing the killing of children and the elderly if only because it was beneath a ninja to do so. Sort of ironic really but whatever worked.

Ranko smiled as her targets were selected and added a several twigs to the leaf floating trick and extended it down and around the rest of her arm. This was going to be interesting.

.o0OXO0o.

Ranko walked into Ichiraku's ramen stand a breathed in deeply. Smiling she made her way up to the bar. Sitting down she curiously noted both the larger clientele and new girl behind the bar. Tilting her head to the side she was startled by when Ayame popped up beside her and asked for her order, an impish grin on her face. "The usual, Ayame-chan." She murmured smiling. "Who's the new kid?"

Ayame frowned and passed a slight glare to her friend. "Finally noticed her huh? Her name's Fumi, since you didn't take our offer and we've honestly been needing an extra pair of hands around here since you death we hired her." she said gesturing to the cute black haired girl. Ranko'd have sworn she was a Hyuuga if it weren't for her eyes, they were normal with dark black iris's instead of the solid Hyuuga white. Noting her friends questioning look Ayame continued. "She was a street rat like you, only considerably better off. Got by off being cute and scamming vendors out of their wares, I think that's how she got pops to hire her." Pausing significantly she looked Ranko square in the eyes and spoke again before hurrying off to fill out the girls order and get back to work. "We've set her up in the spare room."

Ayame's words held Ranko still and unresponsive until her ramen arrived. The spare room had been something of a prominent figure in Naruto's journals as a place she'd felt safe and had been used often by the family to help her escape various tormenters before the reboot. Since then it had literally been her home while she was building the hideout behind the fourths head. To have it occupied by another in a seemingly permanent manner shook Ranko far more that she'd consciously admit.

She was broken from her reverie by the first of four bowls being gently placed before her. "Shrimp broth with all the toppings. And papa says thanks for the chestnuts, they've been a hit this week." Ranma smiled her thanks and handed over the yen for the bowl and the three that would follow it before digging in. Unlike what many read in the fan-fictions and anime, traditional ramen stands were actually a fairly healthy place to eat. Heavy carb noodles and salty broth there was aplenty of course but even a simple miso ramen from the stands had dropped egg, broccoli and a few strips of pork at minimum, a standard bowl with all the toppings was something else entirely. Watercress, chestnuts, broccoli, bamboo shoots, fish, shrimp, naruto, pork and beef swam through seaweed soba and a literal pad of ramen noodles and was well on it's way to being a full course meal in of itself. Sure the salt intake could be a little taxing on your system after a while but damn if it didn't taste good.

Ranko continued eating her meal and occasionally making conversation with Ayame when she had a moment and Teuchi when the man personally delivered her final bowl. It felt nice to have the care so openly. Evening settled and her meal finished Ranko got up and bid the Ichiraku's good night. Despite this however she would not be going to bed for quite some time, she had a job to do.

Returning to her afternoon residence, otherwise known as 'The Master Stroke' inking, tattooing and engraving shop run by Mr Tofu Ono. It was Ranko's humble opinion hilarious and running across the name in Naruto's journal had been the original inspiration in naming herself Ranko. She had briefly considered Kasumi but that had felt too creepy to remain amusing for long as the man was nearly 20 years her senior and she had no intention of marrying any man, let alone one that far removed from her.

Walking up to her desk where she ground inks and occasionally helped draw some of the simpler seals Ranko drew out a very special pair she had traced from master Ono's book before filling it in. Both of them were storage seals but that was where the similarities ended. The first one already held within it a kanji for the word scroll and indeed contained within its basic matrix a large specially prepared scroll enchanted to burn in a specific pattern to copy a targeted section of text, almost like a laser printer. It had cost her nearly two weeks wages but oh would it be worth it. She'd already tested it out on Naruto's diary and the thing worked exactly as master Ono had promised.

The other was a seal meant to consume and store large amounts of chakra for commercial transport. Apparently while Ninja were the only ones to use jutsu in battle, chakra was hardly limited to them and, often enough, was used in civilian life. Since there were no electrical power plants in Kanoha or anywhere else in Naruto verse as far as she had read the presence of computer systems, and indeed the entire strange blend of futuristic and feudal technology, made a lot more sense as chakra based mechanics. Working under Ono-sensei had only served to enforce this lesson as she learned that Fuinjutsu was used for everything from specialized genetic manufacture to washing machines in this world. Once she had known where to look the markings were practically inescapable.

This set of seals in particular was meant for those in the business of supplying the world with power. When applied to the back the paper would sense the bodies chakra capacity and set about leaching their chakra within a set of parameters and storing it in a capacitor array. Hers was set to take away anything over 600 units of chakra which was, coincidentally, the standard for a mid level chunin.

The fact that the Hokage tower was literally filled with dozens of chunin rushing in and out at all hours on a minute to minute basis had absolutely nothing to do with this decision. Nope, not at all.

Peeling off the back cover of the seal and revealing the adhesive, Ranko applied the seal carefully to her back and stiffened, hissing with discomfort as her chakra was cut down to a seventh of what she was used to. Damn she felt tired. Straightening back up she unsealed the copy scroll and inspected it briefly before resealing it and tucking it away in her shirt. Transforming into a nondescript sixteen year old boy in a chunin vest she quickly joined the flow of people in and out of the Hokage tower. Once inside she quickly found a restroom and transformed again into this time becoming a rat. Applying a second chakra suppressing seal to her right breast over her heart she clawed her way up into the vents and began moving.

It was a seriously overcomplicated and spy-movie-esque plot, she knew, but personally Ranko blamed Iruka. It had been the recently promoted chunins first week and the new traps and chakra theory instructor had decided to take the class on a sanctioned tour of the Tower taking the time to explain the basics of security seals and why people would have to be honestly stupid to try and rob the place. It was impressive to say the least but there were two obvious holes in Irukas explanation. As he had explained it there were two type of security jutsu, most of which revolved around fuinjutsu. The first and most common was a chakra sensing matrix that was based around threshold capacities to determine if the target was to be allowed to pass or submit to an IFF scan first. The second was a chakra lock, or matrix specifically keyed to one or more signatures that would unload on anyone who didn't fit the programmed entries. Thing was you had to emit a certain amount of chakra to trigger them in the first place and emitting too much could cause them to overload. The former flaw was so the jutsu wouldn't waste a charge on vermin and the latter had been an outright security hazard and was the reason the blond idiot had been able to get the scroll in the first place.

Ranko had decided to take the form of vermin instead of taking the originals method of infiltration for several reasons. First, while overloading the seals would cause them to become confused or break down it would also serve to make the old man curious and that would be the end of her precious freedom. Second her standard chakra signature was enormous what with the lack of control leaking it all over the place and the Kyuubi keeping her just below the point of overload all the time, if she just walked in someone would be sure to recognize her layered disguises or not. Finally there was Mizuki himself and the role he had played in the blond analogues seizure of the scroll in the first place. All panels had shown the place being nearly empty and Ranko knew from frequent surveillance and Narutos own journals that the place was packed regardless the time of day or night, only emptying to a skeleton staff during festivals. The man had to have helped, a lot. Working this way she should be able to avoid all those pitfalls including the possibility the scroll was enchanted to sound an alarm if removed from the room.

Briefly poking herself out of an air duct, Ranko hung there by her tail for several seconds before pulled herself back unto the duct and unsealing the utility schematics she had pilfered last week from records and nodded in satisfaction. The scroll rooms had to be kept at a specific temperature and humidity to preserved the often decaying ledgers they hid so the ducting system was constantly in a state of maintenance making plans easy to find.

Falling into the room Ranko transformed in the air and laded in a silent crouch. Then with the barest whisper of noise she began seeking her target. After nearly half an hour and four duct trips later she found it. The thing was massive, unmarked and honestly unremarkable from the outside. It's security followed the same pattern being incredibly simple, but all the more elegant for it's simplicity. Two strings of chakra bound it, one to the wall and another closed. Instead of being secured to the wall by the chakra, the ribbon of energy connected to a simple claxon on the other side of the room. Any attempt to break it would sound the alarm and it would only move far enough to be rolled out on the floor. The string binding it was similar, only allowing three feet of viewing before it broke and would also serve to sound the alarm. Since most techniques took up six feet of text and drawings it was honestly brilliant.

But not brilliant enough.

Unsealing the copy scroll Ranko pulled out the printing markers and began carefully using the academy leaf exercises to un and reroll the scroll of forbidden techniques. Reaching shadow clones in the first few techniques she began placing the markers along the border of the target area. Once finished she removed her chakra suppressor and activated the scroll. Seconds later chakra flowed across both scrolls feeling the marked area and burning the image it found onto the prepared surface. Grinning Ranko again hid her chakra and continued on reading technique names and introductory descriptions, occasionally copying one here and there. She paused shortly on an acid technique that could be directed by the users chakra and burn through any known substance before shuddering and moving on when she read it's tendency to fatally disfigure the nin excreting it.

She scrolled on for several minutes shuddering on occasion at the particulars of why one technique or another had been forbidden. More often than not the technique was either half finished before the poor fool who made it tried to use it to disastrous results or the thing took too much control for any standard nin to use and thus an extremely useful technique would go to waste. Several of them, Shadow clones in particular, were simply too draining for anyone other than an elite joinin to use successfully. Then there were the suicide techniques. Ranko grinned at those and copied a few of them down. Combined with shadow clones they'd be a blast. Literally.

Ranko grinned viciously thinking of all the possibilities.

Reaching the end of the scroll twenty minutes she placed her hands on the two nearly even rolls of paper and rolled it back to the beginning with incredible speed. Carefully replacing the scroll in it's slot she rerolled her own scroll and sealed it into it's small carrier seal. Feeling a sudden rush of paranoia Ranko slowly retraced her steps, carefully wiping down everything she remembered touching and thanking Kami the dust in the place was regularly cleaned out. Once satisfied everything that could identify her visit had been removed Ranko henge'd into a crow and flew off, taking extra effort to look like the other birds of the village before heading for her hideout in the Hokage monument.

.o0OXO0o.

As Ranko winged her way back to the fourths head a masked face tracked her progress and smirked. This had certainly been an interesting development. A rush of wind disturbed the figures cloak and the scenery changed from the villages rooftops to a dimly lit wood paneled office. Scrolls and paper were piled everywhere interspersed with random pieces of weaponry, armor and other assorted items. In brief it was organized chaos.

"Tora-chan." A voice, deep with age emanated from the chair back in front of her.

"Hai, Hokage sama."

"You have something to report?" hearing a sound of affirmation the wizened old man in the chair continued. "So how is our little infiltrator? Still mapping the village I suppose?"

"No, Hokage sama. Something far more interesting. I have reason to believe she might be home grown."

"Oh?" the 'professor' said, turning around to face the tiger masked ANBU. "Do tell… Smoke then? Our sister village has been making noise recently about how we don't share enough information with them."

"Negative. I've been following her nonstop for the last 36 hours Hokage sama, she really is just a kid, though an unusually intelligent and innovative one. She managed to use a pair of commercial fuinjutsu and an academy level transformation technique to enter the high security rooms below us and steal several dozen B through S class forbidden techniques including shadow clones, hive mind and several explosive suicide techniques. I watched her work, sir, If you didn't already have me following her I don't think we'd have ever known."

Hiruzen stared out the window for several long moments before replying. "You've absolutely certain she is indeed a child, she shows herself capable of breaking through our high security archives and then proceeds to ignore everything but a collection of jutsu specifically forbidden because they were too dangerous for general use, even by our elites jounin. The more my ANBU tell me about her Tora-chan the more it sounds like Smoke trying to make a point. I assume you'll be beating Ikoku down in bulding security over the head with this report."

"Yes, Hokage sama, but that's not what I found interesting. My study of the target has given me reason to believe that Uzukami Naruto still lives."

.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.

For those who could stomach my story to this point, how was that for a cliffy?

No before you hang me and the rare species know as the reviewer flames me I'll explain my take on the ever going battle over Naruto's henge. My take on it is that it's a ninjutsu like any other and is a weaker, if more versatile, version of the Inuzuka's beast clone and beast mimicry spell. Like Polymorph from WarCraft and other RTS and MMO's centering around magic it literally changes the shape of your body and allows the user the physical atributes of the form taken but dispels when the form takes damage, such as a kunai or Sakura's bone shattering punches. I personally find there's too much evidence of the change being physical in the manga, even without reading it's pilot, to go the illusion route.


	2. Mcguffin

AN: Ohh, I love an intelligent review, before I call you out on the specifics I'd just like to give a big thanks to Senna and Shenandren, even a few minutes to think and write are a big motivation for most writers. But your comment confused me though; Senna, why did you think the ANBU had started tailing her because of her little demonstration? I had been certain that I had indicated that Ranko had been under watch for at LEAST several weeks prior to this, in my mind a few months. Perhaps I didn't explain that well enough but if the ANBU had simply been alerted to an apparent kid knowing A class information from the bingo book and having an easily sensed chakra level way above a chunin and was known to have dug an apartment behind the fourths head they would have dragged her off to Ibiki, not watched with interest as she dissected village security to steal techniques from a scroll of techniques that the village has publicly forbidden, even if it is for the safety of those who try them rather than the villages own security. They've been watching her for a while. The big difference now is the Hokage has a personal interest in her rather than a professional one.

.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.

**Chapter Two**: **Un pericoloso tattica**.

.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.

"My study of the target has given me reason to believe that Uzumaki Naruto still lives." The temperature in the room dropped sharply and the vague tickling at the back of Tora's mind that signified the presence of another's chakra changed to the impression of a giant deformed monkey playing the xylophone with her ribs and femurs. The Hokage's voice however, when he again spoke, was almost disturbingly calm in spite of this.

"Would you care to explain that statement, Tora-chan?"

.o0OXO0o.

Ranko fell to her hands and knees, drenched in sweat and grinning like a maniac. She'd been practicing with all of her free time and largely ignoring class the last several days to practice the signing pattern and review clone theory. But it had been worth it. Before her stood eight perfect copies of herself, grinning like maniacs and patting each other on the back.

Ranko was only half surprised when two of her clones lifted her up by the shoulders and spoke in a creepy unison. "Our naaaammmmeee is Leeeegggggiiiooooonnn for weeeeee are Maaaannnnnyyyyyy!" The other 7 of her stood there frozen for a second before losing themselves to hysterical laughter, several of them falling over and dispelling as their heads impacted against the rough stone floor of her training hall. Ranko winced slightly as she was filled in on the thoughts and memories of the clones' relatively short existence. It was strange really how each of her copies had had different thoughts in reaction to the legion comment; she would have to study that later.

Technique figured out Ranko filled her home with clones and set them to practicing her modified leaf floating exercise with orders to dispel sequentially to give her the maximum effect of the training. That done, she created several more clones, which then left the monument as pigeons. Being pieces of her they all knew their assigned tasks. One would cover for her at the academy until taijutsu practice another would take care of her duties at the Master Stroke, two would scout the Uchiha district and the others would follow up on the rest of the job offers she had reviewed all those months ago.

It was risky letting herself be seen in several different places but it was an unfortunate tendency of Leaf citizenry to rationalize and or ignore anything was wasn't convenient to them and their world view so she'd only have to worry about the ninja. One in particular if she missed her guess. Over the last week someone with as massive a signature as her own had tripped the ward encircling the frame of her door no less than six times. Twice while she had been asleep. There was no mistaking it, the Old Man knew about her now, and likely knew exactly who she was as well, judging by the fact that she was neither in jail nor missing any of her possessions.

Ranko shivered. Honestly she didn't know what was more disturbing, the fact that the jig was so obviously up or that the old man had let it rest without confronting her about it. He always pulled Naruto in when he'd pulled a village wide prank or skipped class, Even if he agreed to let her keep her new life why wouldn't he come talk to her about it and express some weird grandfatherly concern like he was want to in the manga?

Shrugging off her musings touched down on one of the empty training fields on the far side of the mountain from the village proper and reversed her transformation. The training ground itself was fairly simple; it had several wide open clearings, a stream with several pools and uneven grassy terrain with the odd boulder here or there. The fact that only one of the clearings was natural and the boulders and pools had been made by errant techniques was only to be expected, this was a Shinobi village after all.

That, and she intended to rough up the landscape quite a bit herself over the next few hours.

During last week's adventure Ranko had stolen a lot more than just the shadow clones her male analog had been limited to learning. Chief among the stolen cache of forbidden arts had been the collection of dozen or so suicide jutsu and an outlawed Yamanaka family ninpou; kokoro subako no jutsu the Hive Mind technique. It had originally been intended as a scouting jutsu to help develop a better spy network for the village and worked on a lot of the same principals as Shintenshin, forming a connection between two or more minds and allowing instant sharing of information between the connected members. And like shintenshin, the dominant mind, designated the queen, would be able to coordinate and control the others. The problem with the technique and the reason it was considered forbidden was that it worked on the user's strength of will; if one of your targets had a stronger mind than the current queen they could easily become the dominant mind and take over the network. Being Ranko had no intention of using it to subvert others but rather coordinate her clones for training and combat she felt she might be safe in becoming queen with a little practice; make that a lot of practice… she wasn't even sure if someone from outside the clan could even initiate the jutsu. Wouldn't stop her from trying though. Then there was the rest of her arsenal.

Suicide techniques: Uniquely powerful jutsu with a nearly infinite variety of effects and methods that invariably dealt with at least one other person being certain to go down with you. That was of course if you didn't encounter someone fond of their almost perfect foil. Clones. Suicide techniques were always dual focused, first on making sure no target could possibly survive their point blank method of execution and second or ensuring that said target couldn't escape while the spell was being prepared. Doing a suicide run only to find out your target had replaced themselves with a clone at some point was the ultimate bitch slap and the sheer commonality of clones made such techniques largely pointless, but what if you were a clone user yourself?

This was where Naruto's affinity for shadow clones factored into Ranko's designs. There was no risk to the user if a clone could do the technique. The spell drains your chakra till death when used? The clone will just dispel. Using this move will tear your body apart? No sweat, clones die in waves, it's just the name of the game. The energy will go wildly out of control if you don't set it up properly? The bigger explosion the better spent its existence was. You say it'll mutate me into something horribly grotesque and violently disturbed? Well the memories will be a bitch but it won't carry into the feedback, lets rock!

Of the jutsu available in the forbidden scroll, Ranko had chosen most of them to work along with shadow clones—like the hive mind technique she was going to start practicing soon. Pulling out her notes, Ranko looked down the list and smiled. She wasn't likely to complete half of it by the time she graduated but she honestly couldn't help but smile at her opening choices. Bunshin Daibokuha and all its variants; Uchiha Itachi eat your heart out. (Though in all honesty, it wasn't originally a clone technique; it had become fairly popular with those ninja who felt secure enough in their power to use and abuse clones regularly.)

Daibokuha. A rank suicide technique. Tiger, horse, dragon, ram. Releases all remaining chakra in an expanding wave of force. Fine chakra control will increase the speed of expansion while the quantity of chakra released controls the pressure per square inch. Detonation is activated by right hand ram seal.

Daibokuha: Kanton. A ranked suicide technique. Tiger horse dragon tiger. Converts all the users remaining chakra to fire element. Without chakra to protect it the user's body vaporizes adding force to the explosion. Detonation is activated by right hand ram seal. Best used with solid clones.

Daibokuha: Raiton. A ranked suicide technique. Tiger horse dragon monkey. Converts all the users remaining chakra to electricity. Without chakra to protect it the user's body vaporizes becoming a mass of highly charged ball lightning. Discharge occurs over the next three minutes vaporizing everything in the area. Detonation is activated by right hand ram seal. Best used with solid clones

Daibokuha: Iwa. A ranked suicide jutsu. Tiger horse dragon snake ox. Users body petrifies and turns to stone before violently exploding, covering a wide area with shrapnel. Detonation is activated by right hand ram seal.

Daibokuha: Diedo. A ranked suicide jutsu. Tiger horse dragon snake dragon. Users body turn to mud and explodes covering the area with a fast drying adhesive. Detonation is activated by right hand ram seal. Normally used with earth style clones.

Daibokuha: Futon. A ranked suicide jutsu. Tiger horse dragon tiger dragon. Siphons the users remaining chakra into the air, creating a sphere of hundreds of randomly sized and aimed wind blades. Detonation is activated by right hand ram seal.

Daibokuha: Sui. A ranked suicide jutsu. Tiger horse dragon boar. Converts users body into a large amount of highly corrosive acid before exploding, dissolving everything in the immediate area. Detonation is activated by right hand ram seal. Best used with solid clones

Putting the sheet under her left arm, Ranko began the sequence for Shadow clones. Seven seals; Ranko sighed, she'd have to practice a lot to shorten that, she thought as her hands went through the motions. _Tiger_, _boar_, _ox_, _dog_,_ ram_, _snake_, _tiger_, push, a little smoke and…_voila_. A good 50 clones each with their own sheet of notes and ready to do her bidding.

"Seven groups, team leaders decide who does which technique, make sure to get plenty of space between you and everyone else when you're confident of detonation." Folding up the sheet and tucking it into her shirt, Ranko pointed at one of the clones randomly. "You, follow me." The orders were unnecessary as the clones knew everything she did at their point of creation and she knew this habit of talking to herself was probably unhealthy, but it made her feel better to verbalize things regardless.

Reaching a new clearing devoid of her other clones Ranko handed a bottle of henna paste to the one who escorted her. Taking out another piece of paper from her blouse Ranko unfolded it reveal diagrams detailing a set of tattoos in various positions on the vaguely drawn bodies. One on either temple, a third on base of the neck and the last over the heart. Seen from a distance the tattoos looked like kanji for mind, spirit, unity and control but closer inspection would reveal that the lines of each logogram was made of dozens of smaller symbols vaguely resembling katakana but not matching any known pattern of the language. Once activated the symbols would become invisible to those not marked and last as long as the ink did which was the whole reason for using henna. It was temporary and could be washed off.

"Thanks." she said. The clone nodded and disappeared, its chakra and memories flowing back into the collective. Time to test the hive mind. Seventeen seals, five of them unique and an identically tattooed target. The primary advantages over shintenshin and it's more common variants was the continued mobility and consciousness of the user and lack of psychosomatic reflection which was honestly a godsend because trying to disperse like her clones would be a lot more than simply painful.

Creating a single clone Ranko took a deep breath and began the sequence.

.o0OXO0o.

The ANBU Tora drifted lazily over the village of Konoha on the wings of a falcon and growled. Or tried to rather as the action wasn't exactly well suited to her current form. Trust Kushina's brat to come up with something that should have been seen generations ago. The damn woman was insufferable as far as the 23 year old was concerned; even from beyond the grave she continued to make her former student feel stupid. Using chakra strings to leash the nine tails, killing A class criminals with academy substitution techniques, skipping out on paper work with shadow clones...at least she didn't still have to deal with Jiro she thought, signaling to several of her other clones as she continued to observe 'Ranko'.

Honestly she had to give the little girl credit on fooling the entire village for over a year. They had only found her because of the girl's unfortunate habit of mapping the village like a poorly trained intelligence officer. How they hadn't noticed her massive chakra signature before then was a complete mystery to the Hokage's counterintelligence office. Tora suspected it had to do with familiarity; hear a sound long enough and you automatically screen it out. Same happened occasionally on teams who had been around each other for years on end.

Turning her attention back to her job Tora reviewed the girl's recent activities. Chakra control training in her den, suicide techniques in the forest, some form of meditation beside a stream, milling herbs at her day job, tending applications at random shops around town and what was this? A pair of pigeons landing in the Uchiha district? Making a number of minor adjustments to her wings and tail Tora drifted down a few dozen feet and set up circling over the district herself, watching her charge. She had noticed the girl spent a lot of her class time when she wasn't goofing off staring at the various Uchiha in her class and others, but to follow them into their own home? The girl had a death wish, that was for certain. The clan compound was invitation only and the primary profession in the clan was shinobi related in one way or another and nearly all of the parents had been special jonin at one point or another.

Still, it would be fun to watch regardless. They were just clones after all.

.o0OXO0o.

Ranko smiled as a tile shifted behind her, betraying the presence of the person behind her. Carefully making another stroke with her brush she spoke. "Hello."

"What are you doing here blossom." a high pitched male voice asked in response. Turning her head to the side she grinned at her classmate Uchiha Han.

"You know I hate that name Hanna." she shot back.

"Still doesn't answer what you're doing here." he replied. "You know my parents never gave me permission to let you come and play, tell me what you're up to or I'll call dad."

" 'M spyin!" she chirped, her madcap grin still in place as she showed him a picture of Makoto who was sweeping her porch two houses over. Han slammed his palms into his face and groaned at the girls antics. She was always doing something weird like this. Being smart to the teachers, pulling pranks, saying some of the oddest things about how to apply their lessons in class... It was almost like she intentionally spoke in riddles.

"Arrg, why do you have to be so weird? You never make any sense, honestly, what kind of spy admits to spying?"

"A clever one!" she shot back. "Besides, maybe your dad will be impressed! I got this far without the guards stopping me, didn't I?" Han frowned at that as he sat down next to her. He looked down at the drawing again. It was a fairly good depiction of the Uchiha matriarch, if a little stylized. Perhaps pops would be impressed with her. Either that or he'd spend the rest of the day berating the guards.

"Yeah, well be careful with your boyfriend; flower girl, Fugaku-sama's been really angry lately, though I'm not sure why."

"Oh?" the clone asked, perking up at the sentiment. Was the day of fate really this close?

"Hnn," came the reply, the boy beside her refusing to elaborate. It was swiftly followed by a short protest of pain as the clone slapped her friend across the back of the head.

"What have I told you about grunting at me? I want details." Han glared at his companion for several minutes rubbing the back of his head before relenting.

"Shisui died last night and dad thinks Itachi had something to do with it. He trained the Shisui after all. I don't actually know why Fugaku was shouting but that probably has something to do with it."

"And I suppose Itachi's been acting odd for months?" Ranko prompted. 'Looks like I've got a week, maybe two. All the manga was really clear on was that it didn't happen immediately afterwards. Only half listening to Han's suspicious affirmation Ranko put a hand in her blouse and touched a painted tattoo hidden therein. It wasn't a permanent one yet but those would come as soon as she found a worthy reason. No, this one was one of her ubiquitous storage seals, in this case holding a spare inking kit from the originals den. She gave Han a dirty look when he failed to be surprised by her pulling something so large and bulky out of her loose clothing. Perhaps she'd done it too often? Nah…

Setting the new kit on her lap she opened it and started grinding one of the ink bricks. This one was a dark red, only nearly black because of the blood mixed into its formation. Special ink for special seals master Ono had often told her. "Your hand?" she said politely to her friend. The other boy bristled knowing the question was more a politely phrased order than anything else. "Don't worry so much, I just want to try this new communication array master Ono taught me."

She wasn't exactly lying, Ono Tofu had indeed taught her a seal that could allow for communication between two points as such were the basis for this worlds wireless transmissions system and allowed the limited television network to function without proper radio technology. This particular one was occasionally used by ninja prior to the innovation of micro radios and was painted on the back of the hand. That it also served as a locator beacon for anyone else wearing one painted by the same brush was completely beside the point of course, naturally, u-huh.

Reaching out and taking her friends hand, and dealing with only token resistance, the clone began lightly drawing the brush across the back of the young Uchiha's hand in small precise strokes. It took several minutes to complete the full sigil but it was done, dried and activated. Tagged for release, one down five to go. Putting everything back together Ranko threw the box high in the air to be caught and taken away by another, henged, clone. She smirked as Han gaped at the performance. And decided to give him one last show before leaving. "Hey Hanna."

"Huh?" said the mystified boy still wondering when the clanless girl had gotten her avian companions.

"Gotta run!" she said and leapt of the roof, dispelling during lift off.

.o0OXO0o.

Ranko rocked, her concentration lost as another clone dispelled suddenly. 'Damn it' she thought, 'I almost connected that time!' she had been working for nearly six hours on the Yamanaka scroll and the progress had been less than pleasing. 'Damn it all, Ion knew shintenshin when I first got to the academy! It shouldn't be this hard when the seal's doing most of the work!' If a lazy bubblehead could get the basis for this technique before even completing the academies bunshin, she could certainly finish this. It'd just take a little more time.

Sighing Ranko transferred her own experiences across the net and set about reviewing the information she'd received. Four of her six class mates were now tagged and she had the beginnings of a timeline. When she got notice that the last two were tagged she'd set a mouse henge on the wall that would mark Itachi's final ultimatum. Meanwhile she'd be putting more clones into chakra control exercises.

Ranko turned back to the clone she'd been working with and sighed. They'd each been taking turns trying to connect with the other and it was quickly getting frustrating. Over the past five hours she had managed only to get a small tugging sensation and her clone had mentioned a feeling of disassociation during its last attempt. The fact that even this was impressive for a beginning user of the original technique was unfortunately lost on her.

The way the scroll had described it the seal created a bastardization of the original clan technique and the chakra string exercise, forming a semi permanent link between the user and their target instead of sending all of the collected energy at the target in an effort to overwhelm them. The function that allowed the user to take over the target was the presence of your chakra in their body, and more specifically taking up space in their brain. Since chakra was a physical extension of one's will, supplanting your chakra over the targets in the area of the brain allowed you to use the remote organ as it were your own, thus why a weak opponent with a strong mind could easily shatter the Yamanaka family ninpou while a powerful opponent with a weak mind would remain susceptible to them despite their skill in any other area.

This was also the reason the technique was so dangerous to the user since the seal worked by passing chakra and information both ways.

Looking up at the darkening sky above Ranko sighed. "It's getting late, tell the others we'll start again in the morning." Her clone nodded and dispelled itself followed by the others, one a minute so as not to overload the originals mind and risk data loss. Suddenly immensely tired Ranko smiled and stretched. She'd hit up Ichiraku's before heading back to the den… well if she didn't fall asleep in her ramen that was.

Snorting softly Ranko briefly wondered how amusing it would be to see Teuchi's face if she did.

.o0OXO0o.

Ranko woke abruptly, a jolt of semi-foreign memory running through her throbbing skull. Looking up she saw the teacher hadn't caught her, still reading her book, and most of the class, or rather those who hadn't been following her example, were still absorbed in trying to follow the random pattern of hand signs drawing themselves on the blackboard. She'd had to come in personally today because most of the day had been dedicated to taijutsu, something her clones weren't quite up to faking yet.

Still, signing drills and enchanted blackboards were not what had awoken her. The timeline had changed slightly, after nearly three weeks Itachi was finally ready to make his move. The kunai had shattered the wall outside his house and dispelled her spy so she had till dusk to grab her classmates. This was going to be tricky. Class was almost over and they would be expected home soon. All 'adult' Uchiha had been recalled from mission status and outside jobs for another clan meeting, which went a ways to explain how the dynamic duo hadn't missed any during the massacre, but they would all be out in the streets by the time Itachi attacked and thus would likely be expecting their children to have returned home.

Quickly excusing herself Ranko grabbed the restroom pass and ran outside. Finding the closest balcony she made a dozen clones. They looked at each other and nodded silently turning into a murder of crows and flying off. They knew what to do.

School ended several hours later and six students left for their homes, each trailed by a pair of crows. Uchiha Han, son of the Uchiha district guard coordinator went down first, brought low when a rock slammed into his head released by a dive bombing crow. Next was Uchiha Chiba daughter of the Uchiha's premier poison specialist. One moment she was walking over a manhole cover and the next she was gone, not even a scream. Megumi fell next, daughter of an ANBU captain she vanished on her way thought a comfortable dark ally, a sound like a muted gong the only thing to mark her disappearance. Then came Uchiha Kuzuki. Top of his class, about to graduate and son of a retired assassination specialist he was the first to require effort and the only one to see his attacker, avoiding a trap and dispelling one clone before falling to a cloth held over his mouth from behind. After him fell Uchiha Nami, top kunoichi of the same class was chewing on a yakatori stick from a street cart when she swallowed a sour one and abruptly decided to take a nap in a nearby ditch. She disappeared shortly after.

Finally, it was Uchiha Jiro's turn to fall. Jiro was an average student and son to no one of any significance to the clan; he was currently in his favorite comic store, gazing at the sold out sign on a set of comics with an expression similar to that of a kicked puppy. Hearing his name called softly Jiro turned to see a near classic beauty beckoning him over. The girl looked to be no more than 16 with pale skin, a curtain of long silky black hair and curves straight out of the porno he hid under his bed. Jiro could only wonder what she wanted with him when he noticed her uniform and name tag as one of a store clerk. She must be new, he thought, salivating. Reaching her he immediately took her offer to check the back of the store and see if there were any extras of the missing comic in the last shipment. The twelve year old didn't notice anything wrong until a sharp pinch on his neck caused his world to go black.

Her job accomplished the clone dispelled passing the news of a successful mission across the network of active avatars. Promptly the clones second created a clone of its own and transformed into the downed Uchiha. Taking out a long, thin scroll it had collected from the den an hour before, the clone unrolled the poster like sheet of paper to reveal a large and moderately elaborate storage seal. Smoothing it out and placing a rock on the corners of the paper to hold it open the pair lifted Jiro onto the design and set their hands alight with a soft blue glow before touching them to the paper, sealing the sedated boy inside.

The abduction completed the two avatars shook hands, grinning and left the room. The one transformed to look like Jiro headed for 'his' home in the Uchiha district to await the slaughter while the second became a falcon and flew off to join the other five 'messenger birds' heading for the mesa atop of the Hokage monument. After several minutes the great bird came in to land on the raised arm of its red headed creator. Ranko favored the transformed clone with a smile and stroked the feathers on its head before taking the sealed Uchiha from its raised talon. Its purpose accomplished, the clones weave unraveled allowing the constructs energies to rejoin the collective and spread its short existence across the avatars collective memories.

Memory.

Whatever.

Ranko massaged her forehead as she placed the rolled paper on the ground atop a pyramid of five others. It was hard enough dealing with being a little girl rather than a middle aged man and now she had to force herself to deal with the complications of a very literal application of multiple dissociative personality disorder. The voices in my head don't like you and all that jazz. How had the blond idiot dealt with it all? Had their tenant helped him? Was his mind just that much stronger than hers? Or was he really just that stupid that it didn't bother him? That would fit with a lot of popular theories running about the fanon but Ranko somehow doubted it. Whenever the bumbling clown had the luck to find a teacher that gave a damn he's skyrocketed along the path of his instruction, equaling or even outshining the resident genius Uchiha. That combined with who their parents had been lent credence to the idea that he was less an irritating dullard and more an obnoxious hick. Speculation on the originals relative intelligence aside the line of thought still didn't help her figure out how the boy dealt with it.

There was at least and upside to the whole thing, her memory had been quickly becoming almost perfect as the jutsu struggled to sort and process the massively increased and often repetitive memories streaming in. It wasn't particularly hard to understand why; each clone would transfer the knowledge and experiences it had gain over the course of its existence across the entire network of active clones. If more than one was active the extra clones would get a copy of the memories added into their transferable memories and things just compounded from there. If six clones were active and one read a page before dispelling and then each extra clone would have the memory of having read it. If they all then dispelled she, the original, would get the effect of having read it six times, but if each of the remaining clones dispelled sequentially the memories would compound upon each other and she would end up having 'read' the same page 32 times by the time all of them had finished dispelling.

The old school of hard knocks memorization; eat your heart out.

Realizing her thoughts were skewing off into a tangent Ranko collected the scrolls at her feet and applied her modified leaf floating exercise to her feet, allowing her to skate across the surfaces of the mesa and cliff till she reached her front door. Her clones were in place and in only a few hours more the Uchiha would be slaughtered. As the tide of change swept the village she only had one more mission to accomplish and she should be rid of the Uchiha threat for good. It wasn't perfect by any means and she would likely have to keep an eye on the seven of them but given the factors that had led to the original problem there was a fair chance of it working.

The plan, such as it was, consisted of a single word. Roofies.

Now, the ninja world didn't have flunitrazepam or any of its derivative drugs as earth did but there was hardly a lack of memory scrambling poisons to be found in a ninja village. Truth was, the sheer number and variety of poisons in the various shops around the village terrified Ranko no end when her clones had returned with their research up to the point that she'd purposefully dispelled all her active clones at the time just so she could have a chance of forgetting what she was about to learn. It was honestly easier that way, mass dispelling not only gave her a massive headache but it also scrambled the incoming flow of data making what was learned less effective in the long run.

After reviewing the data she'd selected a vial of a powerful short term memory drug and been told to be careful with the substance, as repeated use could cause permanent damage to your short term memory. Even for a shinobi. It would however do the job for which she intended though. If she had anything to say about it Sasuke would never remember anything about the day of the attack. Or much of the two surrounding it for that matter but it would get the job done and beggars couldn't very well be choosers. Not if she wanted it to be permanent up to and including the boys subconscious.

Her particular choice had been invented by Iwa to take care of spies without needing to kill them. The point being that you could put them through rough and thorough interrogation repeatedly and they'd always come back with new information the next time you caught them, not having remembered that they'd already been compromised. It caused merry hell during the third war until one spy, his mind so broken by the drug it was a wonder he had any conscious memory left, went berserk and slaughtered everyone in the interrogation room before disappearing when one of his summons grabbed the singing, blood soaked man from behind. Konoha general synthesized the drug from the active material in his blood stream and set about working on an antidote. Ah counterintelligence.

Growing bored of waiting for her clones to update her on the Uchiha situation Ranko set the scrolls on her desk and proceeded back outside, having decided to start trying to further her first and oldest ongoing project since joining the ninja world at large. Chakra Armor. The concept was actually quite simple when you thought about it. The first thing you were taught in the academy after learning how to create chakra was a pair of exercises to give you control over it. The first was using your chakra to stick a leaf to your forehead, the second to make it float steadily over the same place. The way the instructors had described the tasks were to focus your new chakra sense into a certain area, the hands and forehead being the easiest known places to do so. Once you could get chakra to pool there the students were to think about the chakra moving in a circular pattern again, out and then in so as to pull the leaf tightly against your skin. This would later be expanded upon by the Jonin sensei to teach genin how to walk across walls and ceilings. The second was to have your chakra flow, essentially, in reverse creating a layer on which the leaf would float stably as was the basis for water walking. This was significantly harder as the leaf was prone to blow away, now having nothing to rest on but slippery chakra.

What nobody seemed to think about was the fact that this created a barrier between the user and anything that might come in contact with the active surface. Her clone usage had gotten her to the point where she could cover any part of her body with either or even a combination of the two fields. The progress was slow considering the compounded time her clone training allowed her but Ranko more than confident it would be finished in time for Neji's graduation in two and a half years. The training had actually picked up in the last few days since her apprenticeship under Mrs. Kashiwagi had progressed from tending the bellows to cleaning finished pieces of armor. The clear detail and imagery accrued from being taught how to carefully inspect, clean and polish or oil various pieces of armor had allowed one of her startled clones to produce an ethereal copy of one of the gauntlets another clone had dispelled on after cutting her palm open in her enthusiasm.

Such musings, meditations and training continued on as the hours passed, whiling away the time till sunset. An avatar skated in with a large bag of take out from one of the local restaurants as the sun began to hang low and orange in the sky. Allowing said runner to select their favored box Ranko carefully extracted nearly half of the meal for herself before signaling her clones it was time for a swift break. Soon, she mused as her drones grinned at her and settled down for their snack. Another hour and it would all be done. Her clones replacing the six children had managed to go undiscovered, or at least unopposed, and the shinobi had only just gotten out of the clan meeting. It wouldn't be long now and the once great clan would be reduced to nine members. A pair of mass murderers and seven traumatized children. Hah, oh how the mighty could fall.

Ranko leaned back, munching slowly on a sauce covered mouthful of beef and broccoli when the first set of memories hit her. Itachi was active now, cutting people down in the streets and some form of barrier had gone up over the walls keeping her clones from slipping off. And any Uchiha from escaping. It hadn't however stopped her clone from dispelling and returning their essences' to the whole. Another wave of memories washed over her reiterating the stand-in's activities and showing several exhaustive hours of 8 year old Sasuke imitating a soccer ball around Itachi's kunai range only missing one in five shots. Show off. She thought, snorting. The rush of experience ended with Sasuke, sweaty and panting, being caught flat footed as he was injected with five milliliters of distilled amnesia.

Ranko stiffened as her front door alerted her of a foreign entry. Why could nothing ever be simple? Best to see who was knocking so to speak. Standing up and stretching Ranko started walking toward the cliff.

.o0OXO0o.

Hiruzen Sarutobi stood in a dimly lit room hewn from dark grey stone. The room was a comfortable twenty foot square with a five foot ceiling. Good for an eight year old but not exactly spectacular at his age. It was cut like a study with a desk, fire place, book shelves and couches lining the walls. The chairs were lined with a spongy moss he was fairly sure came out of the forest of death while the shelves were lined with the detritus of the various occupation he'd been told young Naruto had taken up.

Quite a fascinating child all in all but the current focus of his attentions, and the reason for his visit, were quite another matter. It was, to say the least, disturbing. Six Uchiha children, sealed into a small pile of poster vellum. There was no possible way anyone outside of the event could have known what had happened before hand; he had made sure of it. Even Tora-chan, one of his personal ANBU had been floored by what she had witnessed during her observation of Naruto-chan's activities.

But Naruto hadn't.

It was almost as if she had known about this event for months before it happened. Even before he himself did if Sarutobi wasn't mistaken. The reports on her progress had been mentioning her efforts to get closer to the treasonous clan ever since her rediscovery. Spending long tracts of class time starring intently at Fugaku's son, Sasuke, trying to cajole her other classmates Han and Chiba to get her onto clan grounds, continuing her original journals on leaf culture but this time focusing largely on the singular clan.

The question that bothered him was what she was planning to do with these six other children. She had obviously been aware of the event so it was likely she was also aware of the situations that had led up to it. For one with such an elaborate plan and smooth execution, why hadn't she simply taken steps to negate it before hand? Why save these six and not someone more powerful, more… useful? A crunching of footsteps sounded behind him and Sarutobi smiled. "Been a long time, old man." a brazen voice sounded behind him. Ah the arrogance of youth.

"That it has, Naruto-chan; that it has."

"It's Saotome Ranko now Old Man." Sarutobi turned around smiling slightly, a minor twitch forming in the hand holding one of the scrolls.

"So you say, Naruto-chan. But I can't help but wonder what else came with that new name." he replied lightly, his hand turning slightly to indicate the scroll he held there.

"Don't worry so much old man, I wasn't bought by a rival village, I just had an epiphany. Being driven to successfully commit suicide will do that to a person." the small girl shrugged. "Feel free to take the others as well, just know if you burn them it won't get rid of those pesky loose ends they hide. Working under a seal master for a year and a half gives you a better understanding of those scribbles than most."

"Oh?" Sandaime replied, his interest peaked. He had originally ordered Itachi to spare those who it could be determined had no part in the coup and had been livid an hour ago when Itachi had returned to report all the Uchiha dead; even so he did indeed intended to dispose of the scrolls after hearing Itachi's concerns about the foreign help he had received during the slaughter. As sad as it made him to admit he saw a great deal of merit in the other elders' plans for closing the door on that particular clan. Their battle prowess and the strength they provided the village aside, they were honestly far too unstable to allow them to run free. Their power came from their sense of personal betrayal for Kami's sake. Betrayal by a role model to activate the bloodline, betraying ones friendships to evolve it, and betrayal of family to secure said power. No, there was just too much brought to light by the clans planed coup to let things go on as they had before. Sarutobi sighed mentally, preparing to listen to his current problem child's revelation.

"The arrays for carrier seals act as a sort of reverse summoning contract." the girl said moving past him to the desk and touching her hand lightly to the desk several times, materializing two bowls of ramen, steam and all, a bottle of sake and another of cranberry juice before gesturing at a stool that hadn't been there moments prior. "The seal isn't actually what holds the item within, but rather acts as an easy access doorway to it." Naruto paused to pull two sets of chop sticks out of her sleeve. Breaking the fresh pair she handed it to him and they started eating. Naruto continued speaking moments later, out the side of her mouth. It was surprisingly clear for someone who was chewing on a mouth-full of noodles and beef at the time. "When you draw the array for a carrier seal you'll notice that there are a lot of notations about spirit and the connection between our power and the circle. It made me curious when I began to understand what master Ono was making me write so I asked him about it. The person using the seal actually holds the sealed object within a fold in their chakra, and slightly out of phase with our dimension. If you learn how to sense exactly what happens when you do that you can figure out how to seal and unseal things without needing the paper and ink."

Sarutobi sat there for several minutes, his chop sticks halfway to his mouth, the food slowly growing cold as he contemplated the implications of what he had just been told. His thoughts were interrupted by a loud obnoxious slurping sound as Naruto drained her bowl. "Don't get too excited though. It took me nearly six years via drilling shadow clones to get this far and I still can't put anything into my chakra without those drawings, I only got to the point of being able to take them back out last night. Give me a couple of years and I should have it figured out."

"So If I destroyed these, it wouldn't stop you from reviving the Uchiha within."

"I'd really rather you didn't, but yeah."

"May I ask about your intentions towards your captives?" Hiruzen asked softly. He had a bad feeling about this but if worst came to worst he could always send her to Ibiki. It would be poor repayment to Minaito for his efforts to save the village but the sheer level of intelligence and maturity coming from the child along with her open admission of her death suggested that Naruto really didn't exist anymore. He may well be talking to the Kyuubi, Perish the thought.

"I intend to drop them off at Konoha general tomorrow morning. It's not what I want to happen, but it was the best solution I could find to the developing situation."

"And what situation would that be?" He asked, fishing for more of the easily coming information. The more one could get out of a willing speaker the better chance of getting to the root of the situation.

"If the weave were allowed to continue as it was intended, Sasuke would have grown to become the bane of the village in general and myself in specific. I wanted to simply kill the child during the evenings blood bath but to do that would bring me into direct conflict with the Uchiha's three demons. Even with all my power I would not survive such a confrontation."

"Three demons? I was unaware Itachi had such summons. An effect of his new sharingan?"

Naruto's eyes fixed on him incredulously. "Old Man, sometimes you make me want to beat my head on this desk and cry. No, as much as shinobi training negates a lot of age based combat factors there is no way an eight and a half year old energizer bunny who hasn't even managed to graduate the academy is going to take on Itachi and win. Maybe if I had my chakra armor and the scroll-less carrier seal thing down, but as is? Hah!" Naruto stated derisively before continuing on.

"As I'm sure you've learned from your ANBU, the Uchiha have a secret room beneath their primary temple that their elders used for higher level functions." Sarutobi nodded in ascent, wondering how the girl before him had found such information. "Among the things in that room is a blood soaked stone tablet and large scroll that detail the history of the sharingan. Prominently depicted on the tablet is a four eyed Akuma with sharingan iris's. The Uchiha's first demon and likely the patron of their extraordinary eyes."

Sarutobi grimaced. Akuma were rare and typically powerful demons well noted for their tendency to kill everything around them and grow from the battle. They offered no mercy, even, or perhaps especially, when their opponents were their own family. If their presence in this dimension supported and was supported by the Uchiha bloodline as the image suggested that was just one more reason to be rid of the clan. "The second demon is of a significantly more human variety, at least I think so. There was a massive and decidedly old power erecting a barrier over the compound during the attack and whatever, or whoever it was not only had more chakra than me but it actually scared the fuzz ball." Ranko paused for several seconds and sighed. "And the less said about Itachi the better, whatever reason the five of you had for this massacre it still takes a special type of person to commit genocide within his own family."

"You're very well informed."

"Shadow clones have many uses." The young girl replied solemnly. Of course. Her status as a jinchuriki and the recent theft of forbidden spells would easily give the girl eyes and ears all over the city.

"You do realize that technique can cause mental trauma when overused, Naruto-chan?"

"Acute dissociative multiple personality disorder?" an identical voice said behind him. "Yes, we've become aware." Said clone walked out from behind him in and collect the finished meal Sarutobi harrumphed.

"Cheeky brat. You also get the effect of any pain your clones feel and experience their deaths in the field." Sarutobi watched as both girls winced. "Now; about your information. I don't want to give you a trip to Ibiki but it's certainly not out of the question, so what do you want in exchange for your network and regular reports on everything you know that I don't?"

"Same thing you've been doing since tiger started following me. Leave my identity alone and don't protest my residence behind dads head." the small girl returned easily with a shrug.

"That easily? You don't want your families monies, properties or names? Advancement to genin, chunin, an apprenticeship?" The old Hokage watched stumped as the girl simply shrugged.

"I like being Ranko." Naruto-Chan said simply. "I suppose the money would be nice, but working six jobs gives me more than I know what to do with as is. My side jobs provide me with all of my supplies too, I set them up that way. Added to that I don't pay utilities because I radiate more chakra than moves through the wires, and I'm stealing water from the pipes rather than having it professionally run up; the cash just adds up. I even manage to eat out every meal without straining myself and you know how much it used to drain your petty cash when you took me out to Ichiraku's." the child shrugged again and let the thought hang.

"Well then, I shall expect your first report on my desk Friday."

.o0OXO0o.

Uchiha Sasuke lay on his cot in the stark white semi-private room of the hospital. It had taken him three days to wake up from Itachi's Tsukiyomi and he has spent the last four in and out of Inoichi's company. The man's debriefing had been gentle considering his situation, but thorough. Drawing into himself he brooded on the state of affairs. He hadn't been able to remember anything during their questioning and the massive fuin on the floor had only brought up a blurred mass of light instead of a representation of his experiences. He had been distraught at first when his interrogators had told him he was the only survivor but then their story and questions had changed drastically halfway through. Six more survivors had surfaced without warning in the hospital where he had woken and they had begun asking him about a girl in his class, Ranko he remembered.

Why was she important? No one would tell him why they were asking about the red head but he intended to find out when he left this makeshift prison. The girl had held little interest to him when she had appeared nearly two years ago. Loud, brash and cheerful, the girl had never been part of his fan club and had only made slight overtures of friendship towards him. Racking his mind he thought of everything he could remember about her. Her taijutsu was strong for a girl, but honestly unimpressive and her accuracy and speed with a kunai wasn't much better; her jutsu and test scores however were something that made him and his cousins green with envy; while she had no special jutsu to her name her reserves and control floored even their instructors. Her replacement technique for one, before it had been a useful and ubiquitous technique for getting yourself out of trouble by replacing yourself with a nearby object but suffered from a five seal sequence to activate. Ranko was able to not only do it without seals but could use it on the teachers themselves or even thin air where she had renamed it assassins rush and used it to get behind Mizuki and poke him in the ribs.

She'd gotten detention for that one.

She was also a bad actor, he could see it in her eyes, and as much as she tried to put forward a bright friendly face she had approached the concept of friendship in a somewhat clinical, almost predatory manner. It was as if she wanted something from everyone she came in contact with and planned her behavior for a manner in which to best achieve it. It was not something he would have looked for in a friend before but with his brother's betrayal… well. Perhaps he should go about getting closer to her? Even if she did things for her own less than charitable notions the T&I departments interest in her meant that she would probably make a fine ally in his newly forming quest.

A creak sounded at the door and Sasuke looked over to see the object of his musings standing there looking at him. "I was just thinking about you." he murmured.

The girl raised a blood red eyebrow. "Well, you know what they say; speak of the devil and it shall appear." he watched as she shifted uneasily beside his bed, looking in turn at each of his cousins, splayed out on beds beyond him. "How are they?" she asked, inclining her head towards Han and Chiba.

"Well," he returned. "Only minor injuries. A few cases of poisoning but nothing fatal. The worst of it was the first degree chakra burns the doctors have been jabbering about."

"Good then." she said quietly, turning away. "My business with the Uchiha is done then, this closes your account."

Sasuke watched as she headed for the door, stunned. "What?" he burst out.

"Seven lives, Uchiha. To rebuild your family, and kill your brother. I expect you to keep a leash on them and stay out of my business from now on." Sasuke stared after her as she reached the door and passed out of sight. What did she mean, stay out of her way? Seven lives? How had she known his wish to avenge his lost family? The girls visit had left him with more questions than ever, like when had he ever made a deal with her? Each question only led to more and no answers were forthcoming.

Hours later he fell exhausted into his pillow.


	3. The end of the beginning

Disclaimer: If you recognize it someone else is probably being paid for it. sadly I'll never see a cent, get used to it. I did.

Authors Note: My deep appologies to those who actually enjoy my writing, this one took so dreadfully long to get out because it's only eight and a half thousand words. I feel unfinnished if it's not practically 10k. Hope you continue to enjoy, please review if you feel I'm going over the top or fallin short. I need to know what you think of my fight sceen particularly.

Two and a half years later.

October 10th, 11 years after the Kyuubi attack.

Ranko lay back against the roof of Sasuke's house, nibbling at a stick of dango and enjoying the solitude as she watched the night sky. Classes had been canceled today as they had been on this day for the last ten years in celebration of the Kyuubi's defeat. She giggled as the massive flaming constructs appeared to wrestle each other and speared another dango. The naivety or arrogance of the 'fireworks' display aside it was fascinating to watch. The mountainous, writhing, flaming puppets displayed each year tonight required the cooperation of thirteen different fire, or better yet fire and wind, elemental specialists to generate and control. It was impressive no matter how you looked at it. Still, it'd be impossible for the scene to have occurred as such; honestly, how did they think the fourth had performed the sealing ritual through a rough and tumble like that?

As the show began to wind down, the performers chakras waning, Ranko began to clean up, sealing her improvised picnic with a light touch on each item. She was going to take the genin exams this time around she decided. There was really no sense in waiting for the proper timeline, she had already killed that, and it would be a chance to get away from Sasuke as well.

It was funny really that the boys own house would be the safest place to hide from the stalker wannabe. Her warning two years ago had not only been ignored by the younger shinobi it had gotten him laughed out of his first clan meeting after the fall. Ever since then it had been completely impossible to deal with him. Ranko sighed, at least he hadn't managed to awaken his sharingan yet. That would be something nobody needed to deal with.

Events had really begun to spiral out of control over the last few years. While the loss of his memories' regarding Itachi's actions had prevented him from becoming terminally traumatized and the survival of six more Uchiha had averted Sasuke's chance to become withdrawn and brooding, things hadn't improved in any noticeable direction yet. What had happened instead was the boy had become desperate to be accepted by his remaining family as his first clear memory after the fall had been his interrogators telling him that his brother had killed everybody. When he had gathered his cousins together and given them her message he had been straight up laughed out of the house. The event had effectively ended her relationship with Han which, as loath as she was to admit it, had actually hurt. That had confused her no end considering she had been looking for a way to cut ties with the boy in the first place. Ever since that meeting Sasuke had been dogging her like a drug addict, ignoring her ultimatum in a desperate attempt to gather proof against her and be reaccepted by his remaining family.

Things had gotten worse a few months later when the three eldest had graduated together and been placed on the same team under Hatake Kakashi. That had been a real shock for the first few minutes after she had witnessed it. In retrospect it hade made quite a bit of sense, the seven survivors had been in a rather fragile state of mind since the massacre and a trio of them not only made for a comfortable family unit in which teamwork would be easy to encourage but made a good combat team under an instructor who knew not only the physical perils of using a sharingan but the mental repercussions as well.

Things still could have been recoverable but the exam six months ago had put the nail in the coffin as far as dealing with the runt went. Han and Chiba had opted to take the exam at the earliest possible time and had been placed on the second all family team with Megumi, effectively cutting the clan leaders son out of the group.

Exploding away from the house Ranko shook her head and wondered briefly if there was any way around this predicament. She couldn't kill the boy because that would bring Itachi down on her head; beating him up had done no good and only served to make him even more desperate to expose her to the others. Ignoring him didn't work either because he would become loud and obnoxious when she did which would not only gave her a headache but got her in trouble with the brats fan girls as well. She'd tried sealing the boy away once but that had quickly become an utter disaster with the old man himself coming to demand the duckbutts release. No, this was the only way she affirmed to herself as she ricocheted her way across the villages rooftops, she'd apply for the exam at the last minute. Doing so at the last moment would give Sasuke no time to retaliate and see her graduated a full six months ahead of him.

Reaching the building closest to the Hokage monument Ranko released an extra large burst of chakra from her feet and switched tactics. Landing on the lower wall of the cliff face Ranko briefly affixed her hands and feet to the soft stone before it began to slide down in front of her. Or rather she began sliding up it. Her momentum restored Ranko shoved herself off the rock so she stood horizontal and skated on her chakra the rest of the way up the mountain.

She would deliver her request to take the genin exam with her report tomorrow evening she decided, skidding to a halt in front of her door. The old man was always quite pleasant when things were going 'as planned' so there shouldn't be much trouble convincing him. Sarutobi-jiji had actually been actually been trying to push the decision on her for the past two years. That and ANBU, she reminded herself, taking out a some cooking utensils and opening her refrigerator. Smirking briefly at the script for containment, cold and preservation she removed several items and began to cook.

Sitting down to eat her midnight snack Ranko summoned a shadow clone to clean up and processed the input from another recently dispelled avatar. Nodding to herself Ranko finished up and headed off to bed. Things were finally about to get interesting.

.o0OXO0o.

One week later.

Ranko knelt in front of the Hokage waiting for him to speak. The gennin exam had passed without incident. Her performance had been much like she'd expected; all of her scores has been pleasantly above average but nothing exceptional. With the only things she had to show off being fairly low key to those who weren't experts and her hard won anonymity her test hadn't been sabotaged and she was viewed as little more than 'exceptional for a kunoichi'. After all, five seal-less shadow clones looked little different from five seal less illusionary clones as Ranko had come to calling them. Even illusions could have shadows if you remembered to make them.

Honestly the best part of the whole event was the determination that her first stage chakra armor really was operational against other ninja, all of Mizuki's strikes sliding off her like water and causing him to overextend himself. Not that this had helped her significantly in the grading, while they had all been suitably impressed that anyone, let alone a kunoichi, had lasted the entire graded period, it had still been marked on her record that her power and form were merely average, suggesting she did not have the necessary precision to make it far up the ranks despite her speed and skill in evasion. She had growled at that and made a mental note to work said deficiencies'. Whoever got Maito Gai in this timeline was going to get numerous shadows.

The old man sighed, interrupting the man turned young girls thoughts. "While I appreciate your insistence on showing the proper respect, Naruto, I put a chair there for a reason." the old warrior said pointedly. "After all, when you start taking missions as a normal Kunoichi you won't have nearly enough time to keep this up as you do. I very much doubt you'll end up doing more than the eight required D rank missions before moving on after all."

Ranko snickered softly. While it was true that the particular variation on kneeling was proper protocol for an ANBU meeting her leader for a report it was also the one shown in classic ninja movies and thus held much more for her than simple courtesy. I was funny, and a decent sense of humor had been a must in her previous life's profession. "So? What do you think?"

"I think you should take it again." The old man deadpanned.

"Aww… but sir, I liked that one!"

Sarutobi glared at her. "You insisted the photographer take a profile shot and then stole the only blank, blacking yourself out and turning the background and eyes red."

"Exactly!" she chirped. "It's so much better for Shinobi work now!" Ranko declared, a broad smile plastered across her face.

Hiruzen rubbed his face and drew in a deep calming breath. "Naruto, let me explain something to you. And I'll speak in small words, because I'm not sure you'll understand otherwise." He put one hand down on the table firmly and with the other held up a pair of shinobi registration forms, hers and one by another gennin named Hitsugiya Shimura. "Shinobi Villages run on money. Money come to us by way of contracts. The people who make these contracts with our Daimyo like to know what it is they're buying. They like to feel sure that their money is not going to be wasted and that they are not being overcharged. As such personally altering your registration form to show as little as you can get away with is not only counter productive, it can actually hurt your village and your career."

Ranko turned serious for a moment. "Sir, despite the evolution of ninja society in the last century the bulk of our A and B class missions continue to deal with shadow opps. I've seen the scrolls; the one that come in, the ones you keep for the fire lords tax reviews, as many of them as my clones could read without falling asleep. They're always the same thing. I need this person killed, I need this thing stolen or destroyed, I want this information to never see the light of day and above all in every contract, let no one know you were there and don't let this be tied back to me. My experience in this village has punished me with the skills necessary to do these jobs. Stealth, evasion, advanced breaking and entering, only killing has so far eluded me and that has been a close thing often as not. The fewer people know about me and what I can do the safer I'll be when I start taking missions outside of the village. You don't need a fancy unstoppable Jutsu to make things work if no one ever knows you're there."

"True as that may indeed be," Sarutobi replied, leaning back in his chair. "those are hardly missions we can just assign to some random shinobi like C and D rank missions. As repugnant as the idea is to many of the more security minded individuals, clients with the pocket to pay for such things have long insisted on a sort of catalogue system to show them what we have to offer them with each contract." The old mans gaze locked on the young redhead, "You're taking the photo again and you're going to fill out this registration again without funny business or I'll have you escorted through the process, do I make myself clear?"

As Ranko drew in a deep breath to offer a long suffering sigh, the entire effect of the old Hokage's speech was shattered by the loud and messy appearance of Sarutobi Konohamaru. Yelling something about getting his name changed and taking 'Oiji-san's' hat the boy leapt threw a dozen wooden kunai at his grandfather… only to flub his landing and tumble across the room in a tangle of limbs, his face planted firmly in the wall.

Ranko lost it, falling off her chair in the middle of the room and laughing up a storm.

.o0OXO0o.

The next day

Ranko sat there happily examining the class having left Konohamaru too stew in his delusions. It was slightly mean and unnecessary, she was willing to admit, but it wouldn't really do for her to have the boy following her around like some lost puppy. After all, Naruto's patience for children was something she defiantly lacked.

Leaning back Ranko reviewed the information she had gathered on the over the course of her clone minions spying activities when another student walked into the room, a fresh new Hita-ite wrapped around his forehead. Ranko cocked her head to the side and studied the boy who's head was covered by the bandana part of his forehead protector. She was sure she had known everybody who was in each class and certain this boy hadn't been in the testing group yesterday. She abruptly stopped wondering at his identity as the child turned to look directly at her.

Ranko stared at the sight in front of her in utter disbelief. This could not be happening… There was no fucking way, she had planned it all out perfectly! There was no way he could have done this! The little heathen hadn't even taken the exam, how could he be here? There wasn't enough time for him to have taken it!

Flustered and shaking violently, Ranko glared at they smirking Uchiha as he calmly climbed the steps to the back tier of the class and took the seat next to her, drawing the heated glares of several of the classes girls. The dark haired boy was saved from her wrath by the timely appearance of Umino Iruka who called for silence. As the talking settled down Ranko settled for starring frostily at the blackboard and trying to look unconcerned.

Mizuki was late she noticed as Iruka went through the customary congratulatory remarks and started on team assignments. Add to that Sasuke's sudden appearance in a fashion similar to the blond idiots and it would make sense that something similar had happened. That in itself was potentially troublesome but she couldn't bring herself to believe that something like that had happened under the noses of her clone army without her being informed. The old man had had her attempt to break into every secure facility in Konoha so he could fix any other security oversights and something like Mizuki's ploy was bound to make a lot of noise.

How? The question spun round and round her brain in ever tighter an more frustrated loops up to the point where she almost missed her name being called.

"Team thirteen; Saotome Ranko, Tsukino Shingo and Kashiwagi Makoto under the guidance of Jonin Hyuuga Taiki."

Sasuke, the poor boy, immediately shot to his feet and protested. He didn't last long though as Iruka gave him a very similar dressing down to the one the blond idiot had received in the original timeline. It was almost comical really and went quite a ways to soothing her anger over the boys presence. At least there would be no favoritism for one of seven survivors like there had been for the last Uchiha.

Assignments finished Iruka dismissed the graduates for lunch. Standing up abruptly Ranko grabbed the front of Sasuke's shirt and replaced with a tile on the school roof. "What in the burning hells are you doing here?"

"Well," he replied, still mildly smug "I'd assume I was graduating, what with my shiny new Hita-ite and assignment to team 15."

Growling she replaced with a mass of air behind his head and slammed an elbow down on his spine. Checking him briefly to make sure there was no serious damage she flipped him over with her foot. "I saw that you idiot, I want to know how you followed me to graduation when you weren't there for the test!"

Groaning the younger boy reached up to grab his head and, chuckling weakly, ground out an answer. "Mizuki came to me. Noticed I was furious you'd done the exam and passed. Offered me a chance to take a secondary skills test instead. Fool wanted me to steal a scroll from Hokage-sama's archives. I went to Sandaime-samma's office and turned Mizuki in with a report of the situation instead so the old man passed me. Gave me a low B rank mission for it to boot."

Ranko's legs fell out from under her and she started banging her head against the roof tiles. The story was largely different, but her suspicions had been right. "Stupid, stupid, stupid!" she spat, each word punctuated with another strike against the tile roof. "Gah, I hope you fail!"

"What? I've already passed, stupid. I'm a genin with a mission under my belt. It's stupid I'm not on your team, but our next chance to fail is the chunin exams."

Ranko stopped punishing herself for her lack of foresight and turned her head to grin evilly at the boy. "Not quite yet little Uchiha, not quite yet. Remember how teams occasionally come back to the academy for a year of remediation even after graduating? Each instructor is given the opportunity to personally test their students competency and decide whether or not they're willing to teach the brats they've been assigned. Pity your cousins already passed Hatake Kakashi's test, there's no way you would have made it with him."

Giggling like a maniac Ranko bounced off down the tiered roof to find her team mates for lunch.

.o0OXO0o.

As it turned out Ranko didn't get to eat with her team the first day, by the time she found them they were each already half way through their meal with separate groups of friends. Slightly miffed but not altogether bothered by the situation she promptly strung together a series of replacements and ate her lunch at Ichiraku's Ramen. After returning to the academy they were quickly divided into teams as the sensei each came to the door to collect them.

"Team thirteen, under Hyuuga Taiki." Ranko got up and headed towards the door, taking in their potential sensei's appearance as she went. Hyuuga Taiki was tall with long black hair pulled back in a French braid and a metal plate covering his forehead and cheeks, reminiscent of the Nidaime Hokage. Likely a branch member then, Ranko thought. He wore a loose black robe that reminded her of a shinigami from bleach. There was no sword unfortunately but that didn't necessarily mean anything, He could have one in storage space or have simply left it at home, not expecting to need such on his first day meeting a team. As the new team 13 assembled by the door and filed out Taiki blinked and a series of off color, semitransparent images reminiscent of a wire frame world s/he'd built in previous lives crashed into Ranko's mind.

Someone watching from a taller perspective was moving **very** quickly out of the academy, along the streets of Konoha and through the wilderness of the training grounds to a specific one. Once it arrived there the vision focused on a clock, set for five minutes and counting down. The vision ended with a voice, deep, loud and reverberating in her mind. _Meet me there at your best speed_.

When Ranko came to their sensei was gone and both of her team mates were leaning against the wall clutching their heads. "Did you see that?" Makoto asked shakily.

"Yeah. It hurt," Shingo returned. "how about you Ranko-chan?" the blond boy said, turning to her.

"He's a mind walker." she answered with a feral grin. "That wasn't in his dossier, I thought that was only a Yamanaka thing."

Both of the boys looked at her strangely. "We should get going, it's bad luck to keep a psychic shinobi waiting." Ranko grinned at Shingo's warning and grabbed both boys by the front of their shirts. There was a look of shock before space warped around them and everything seemed to slide and twist, first into a rush of color before finally solidifying into the training ground they had been ordered to attend.

"Attention passengers, the Kawarmi express has reached it's station, please be careful when exiting the vehicle and hold onto your lunch at all times."

"You are an utter bastard." Makoto replied shakily as he stumbled a little, clutching his head while Shingo fell to his hands and knees, sacrificing his onigiri to the forest.

"Hehe, sorry about that, stringing replacements like that made me queasy the first couple dozen as well." she passed over her shoulder. "You get used to it though. Dead useful in a fight." Picking up the clock she tried to stop it only to have Hyuuga Taiki appear in a small cyclone of flame and smack her hands away. The man picked up the clock and smiled. Less than three minutes and It looked as if they had been waiting for him a good fifteen seconds. He had taken a lazy combination of shunshin and roof hopping true, but it was still pleasantly surprising to see his prospective students there first. At full sprint under academy standards it should have taken them 10 minutes and would have given him an excuse to dismiss them.

"Nice speed." He said, putting the clock back down on the post. "Please, sit." He said gently as a mount of earth swelled up to form a chair behind him. Ranko watched greedily as the other two gaped at the sight. Not only had a Hyuuga used two separate elemental techniques he had performed them without apparent effort or hand seals. There were two ways to do something like that, phenomenal power or perfect control. Either was unilaterally impressive to the trio of genin hopefuls but the significance of it was even more apparent to Ranko. First off, he was a branch member and while there were a number of obvious exceptions there was a reason for the main houses personal propaganda that they were, unquestionably, the strength of the Hyuuga. Second, Hyuuga simply didn't use elemental techniques. It wasn't that they couldn't, but doing so was regarded by the clan elders as akin to heresy. Either this guy was a political wizard, or he was **really** sneaky. Considering he'd just casually displayed three essentially illegal techniques she wanted to put money on him having some sort of political stranglehold on his family but that didn't quite fit, if it was political they why wouldn't it be in his file?

Step two, intimidate the students; success. Taiki thought smirking. "Please tell me about yourselves."

Glancing at her two companions Ranko stepped past the frozen boys and bowed. "I am Saotome Ranko, Hyuuga-sensei. I like fighting, chaos and magic. I dislike preconceptions and before you start calling me flower girl like these two dunces my name is spelled like this." She said, writing the Kanji for wild child. She'd forgotten how the female version of the name had also meant orchid daughter when she'd chosen the name and it had caused her no end of grief ever since. Nothing major but it was definitely something a child would bring up and the fewer aggravations she faced from her new teacher the better. "My dreams… are private."

Their sensei's eyes widened for a moment but made no other indication that he'd heard. Nodding to Shingo the boy wiped the residue from his face and came to attention. "Tsukino Shingo, Hyuuga samma." The rest of the intro was fairly basic. The boy was talkative in the extreme but most of it was summed up in his dossier. Tsukino Shingo was a second generation shinobi and very dedicated to his family. He had an elder sister who was a miko at the fire temple and his father specialized in light based ninpou he had created himself. She had an extensive file on the family built up over the last few year because she'd found the parallels' hilarious. No other senshi had show up yet and sailor moon was both seventeen and inactive, but she'd keep here eyes open all the same.

Ranko swore she saw their sensei almost smile as Shingo babbled about his sister before cutting him short and gesturing to Makoto. Bouncing to his feet Kashiwagi Makoto bowed deeply "I am Makoto," the boy said, straightening up. "My family and friends are very important to me. My mothers insisted I become a shinobi to uphold the family honor but it is my dream to be the best smith in the elemental nations. I must admit though, I'm curious how the team is going to work. Ranko-chan works for my family, after all."

"You are hardly your aunt Makoto-kun." Ranko replied with a raised eyebrow. "And I worked many jobs to sustain myself."

Makoto snorted. "You spent all day in the forge, every day for the last three years. You and your pets never left, I'm honestly surprised you had time for the academy, let alone come in second to the top kunoichi from the class ahead of yours."

"Pets?" Hyuuga Taiki prompted. He was going to fight each of them and challenge the three to show him everything they could do, but it would work better for them if they knew each others abilities before they started. Especially if they made the cut.

Ranko rolled her eyes and summoned a series of pretransformed shadow clones. As the dozen or so randomly chose avian and vermin avatars formed up around her Taiki's Byakugan eyes narrowed dangerously. The old man had a lot of explaining to do he decided. "Ok, introductions aside, it's about time for your test. Your real gennin exam." He paused as Kashiwagi and Tsukino started whining loudly while Saotome merely went through the motions. "The official gennin exam is designed to test for the basic skills every gennin will need to survive in our world but the truth of the matter is not everyone is either prepared or even capable of surviving the rigors inherent in our way of life. Therefore each sensei is not simply permitted, but actively encouraged to test their gennin candidates personally to determine whether or not they are fit to continue or if they should simply take their skill out to the civilian sector."

This speech was absorbed quietly by a pair of sullen gennin and one madly grinning plant. "You should be aware that this test has a failure rate of over 66% and the few of you unfortunate enough to pass, the pain only starts here. You will go on missions that risk not only life and limb, but also your sanity. You will be expected to kill, without hesitation or remorse; because the alternative is often far worse than your loss of innocence. Peoples lives will depend on you, your every move, action and decision will tip the scales and decide who will live and who dies. And it will be my job to see that you are ready to do so."

Taiki frowned slightly as he looked over his two shell-shocked gennin. Neither of them had balked or volunteered to be the one to go back to the academy yet so there was possible potential there. The girl however irritated him. Either his suspicions were correct and Sandaime-sama was showing him a disgusting lack of confidence or the girl was an utter psychopath. He'd place his money on her being a plant however as a simply psychotic child would still have shown surprise like the others had at a number of points before now. His eyebrow twitched for a moment before he continued. "For now the three of you will fight me. Manage to land a solid strike on me and you will pass, If not you will be sent back to the academy for review. You are to use **all** the tools available to you and come at me with the intent to kill, nothing less will allow you to pass."

Ranko for her part was desperately fighting the urge not to giggle. This speech was so utterly stereotypical of the hero books she used to read where the up and coming sensei tries to dissuade the hero from plaguing him with their attempts to learn his art. Most of the points were true of course and she knew better than to take this lightly, but it was just so hard when the universe openly insisted on parading these things before her.

She vaguely heard their teacher tell them to begin and traded places with a clone near edge of the clearing. Pausing momentarily to receive a rush of memories from two of her clones Ranko nodded. Both of her team mates were well away and hidden like proper little ninja students so it was time to start things. Activating a series of seals the self named Saotome initiated the hive mind technique with her nearby clones and went into a controllers trance.

Ranko floated in darkness facing a highlighted three dimensional area detailing physical viewpoints of each of her nearby copies along with their thoughts and emotions . It wasn't anywhere near what the scroll had described when she'd started practicing and she was still having a great deal of difficulty holding the technique for any period of time but the benefits of being able to correlate all of her clones into a cohesive team had more than made up for those facts. The remaining problems were still killing her though, she thought as she watched her replacement banter with their sensei before exploding when Taiki decided to take the fight to his obviously lacking pupil. As was, the technique, which was supposed to grant her control and simultaneous viewpoints between multiple bodies was acted as little more than a communications hub, effectively grounding her as a fighter for it's duration. Worse, she couldn't substitute one of her clones as the hub and go out to fight herself. She wasn't entirely sure why, but for some reason the matrix of a shadow clone couldn't handle the mental strain of sharing information across multiple minds; probably something to do with the existing mental techniques already incorporated into said multiplying ninjutsu.

Still, being a semi-omnipotent god general like from earths standard RTS games had it's perks. Such as never getting hurt. Ranko cringed inside her mental playing field as Taiki tore through her clones, chakra armor be damned. Directing one of her avian copies to get a higher point of view, coincidentally enhancing the RTS like feel of the situation, Ranko prompted another to break off a dozen more clones and send two of them to gather their team mates. As fun as this was, testing out her current repertoire against a real shinobi in an, admittedly non-lethal, combat situation, it was time to get to the dual point of the exercise. Showcase the students abilities and present an understanding of teamwork.

.o0OXO0o.

Shingo looked on as Ranko face off against their sensei, his mouth agape. The whole thing had started out simply enough, they had been told the fight was starting and they had all gone to hide like they had been taught in the academy. ….except for Ranko. Her form distorted for a second, but it stabilized so quickly he was certain he'd imagined it. Cloaking himself in darkness by bending the light away from his skin Shingo watched as the redheaded girl tried to talk to the Hyuuga. Whatever she said must have pissed him off though because he charged her shortly after.

That's when things started getting strange.

The young Tsukino watched as his sensei-to-be reared back an arm to strike his teammate when Ranko flashed briefly and exploded in a roiling mass of flames. Slightly fearful, both for his teammate and teacher Shingo went through the motions of another ninpou from his rather limited repertoire. Immediately the glare of the flames became muted and a figure appeared spinning like a top in the center of the rapidly dissipating firestorm.

The conflagration over with Shingo canceled his sight jutsu and watched in confusion as a dozen Ranko's wreathed in a muted blue glow came rushing out of various parts of the surrounding forest to engage the older man. Whatever the glow meant it had little effect on the flow of the battle, Hyuuga sensei tore through the copies all the same. Randomly one or more of them would explode, showering the area with various elements and materials, all of them deadly. Acid, mud that hardened on contact, fire, scything winds, sharp chunks of stone and Kunai among other various sundries.

After seeing all this for nearly three minutes it came as little surprise to him when a clone appeared in his immediate area and began calling his name. Wary for a trap by their teacher Shingo left his place in the bushes and crept up behind the redhead. Placing a kunai at her throat he let his concealment jutsu fade and spoke. "How's things, Ranko?"

"Just peachy really." Came the reply. "I'm here to help you know."

"Probably, but you could also be sensei trying to fool me and this would be my ticket to advancement." chirped the blond, smiling brightly "Thanks for that by the way."

"Regardless whether I'm me or our teacher, you do understand that getting close to me is the absolute stupidest thing you could do, right?" his prisoner asked mildly.

"Hmm, possibly. Solid clones, explosions at a moments notice, apparent disregard for suicide, not the most healthy combination, I can only imagine how your meeting with Makoto-chan is going.." Shingo giggl…er chuckled, as he noticed Ranko stiffen and shift in confusion before going on. "On the other hand, if you're sensei in disguise, as much as this could hurt, you're a lot less likely to kill me in this position. For one, you're not allowed to, for another this is merely a test and you're both a Jonin and a Hyuuga, instant and painless takedowns at close range is what you're famous for."

Shingo stopped chuckling happily and stiffened as another blade appeared poking up into his kidney. "I'm not sensei." Ranko said behind him. The girl he was holding imploded in a rush of air and chakra smoke as his captor stepped back and sheathed her blade. "Get it?"

"Yup!"

Ranko twitched for a moment at her team mates jovial attitude. Shaking it off she pushed on, apparently eager to get to the point of the confrontation. "I need your help." She needed his help? The idea struck the young Tsukino as odd. The girl was easily going toe to toe with their teacher, and she was asking for his help? What could she possibly need? She was already a shoe in for the squad.

"How so? You seem to be doing fine as it is…" he replied turning to look at the slowly forming valley beyond the trees.

Ranko looked at him blankly for several moments and he began to sweat. What was this chicks problem? He'd only stated what they both knew. "Sensei's holding back."

"Huh?"

"Taiki is limiting himself to mid level Chunin abilities to allow us a chance of success, but even with my power I can't do it alone. Your family uses light as it's tool, think you could blind him for me? Hyuuga are all about their eyes, a quick flash at the right time could put him off balance and get us our hits."

Shingo thought for a moment. It made sense, after all three gennin could not really be expected to be able to do anything to a jonin level ninja unless they allowed it and their goal even then seemed a little far fetched. However, with the right synergies a trio of gennin could potentially beat a Chunin so striking one would be a reasonable test for a group of entrants. "Shall we?" he asked, nodding.

.o0OXO0o.

Meanwhile something similar had been happening on the other side of the cratered clearing. "So… this; this actually explains quite a lot." Makoto mumbled, getting a smile in return for his easy acquiescence. "And your pets?"

"Clones as well, yes."

"So that's why you never left. You always had replacements ready to take over when you were done and spent." The young smith muttered. Suddenly frowning the Kashiwagi heir focused his gaze on the redhead before him. "How are you not a jonin already? Or a chunin at minimum? Solid clones, exploding clones, some sort of full body chakra enhancement, tokabetsu jonin would be modest."

Ranko giggled. "So what, my use of transformations isn't anything of note then?"

"Nah, Anyone can use a henge. It just isn't that useful. Anything hits one instead of the other way around and poof you reverse transformation in potentially dangerous places. Can't use it to mod your body in real combat because it would dispel after a single bad block; well, unless you're an Inuzuka or Akamichi that is... The flying thing's pretty cool though. Mind if I borrow it?"

"I don't see why not…" Ranko replied, shrugging. "So you'll help?"

"You have my wires, just make sure sensei's good and distracted. No way we're touching him otherwise."

"Perfect." Ranko's voice sounded from behind him. "So we're all agreed then?"

"Yup," Shingo said brightly, stepping out from behind the same tree as the second Ranko. "On the signal I blind him with my flood lamp jutsu."

Kashiwagi Makoto nodded and continued the thought. "And I wrap him up in ninja wire." He said glancing between the two Rankos "And then we all go in and hit him for our passing grade."

The redhead nodded "Exactly. We gotta do it fast though, even a second between steps might be enough to allow him to recover. Less if he stops holding back so much."

"So what's the signal?" the brunette asked.

"I'm gonna send in a pair of clones. Wind and fire bombs. I've noticed it takes him a few seconds to find me again after recovering from the fire ones and the wind will enhance the effect. When he stops doing his ballerina thing and opens his eyes I want you to flash him, Shingo. Then when he's still disoriented from that spinning shield he does and blind from Tsukino's lights you wrap him up. Then we rush in to finish the test."

"Cool, works for me." replied the blond.

"Agreed."

.o0OXO0o.

Several minutes earlier.

Hyuuga Taiki looked down at his charge and possible watcher and raised an eyebrow. "It is at this point customary to hide from your foe and attempt to strike from concealment, is it not?" He told the redhead pointedly. Her response to this was a nod and a smile. "And you would like to explain why you are not?" It was not a question, despite the phrasing and both of them knew it.

The girl before him shrugged, blurring slightly before returning to focus. Obviously a jutsu, though what type he wasn't entirely certain due to the lack of hand signs and not having activated his sight. He flared his chakra slightly to dislodge any genjutsu and found nothing different. Possible enhancement or a replacement jutsu which would imply clones. Interesting. "It's fairly simple really. My research says that for this test you limit yourself to chunin level abilities and set us some impossible task to test a certain quality each instructor looks for. Even at such limitations, you're still a Hyuuga and therefore hiding from you is impossible."

"That would be an impressive deduction , if you were really a genin. I must say, I'm less than impressed to have Hokage-sama's pet spy on my team. I expected better."

He watched as the girls eyes widened slightly in apparent surprise. Interesting, she hadn't expected to be called out on such. But for which reason? Did she not expect him to know or was she innocent of such? He would find out for certain soon enough. The little redhead grinned suddenly and replied. "Don't take it too hard, Hyuuga-san, you're not being investigated; I really am a genin in most regards."

Taiki's eyes narrowed. "We shall see." he said and blurred forward. Molding his chakra slightly for the corrosive power of flame Taiki stabbed forward with a Jyuuken combination. Or rather tried to. Instead of taking her punishment like the green kunoichi she pretended to be his target exploded in a mass of flames. Another instant sealless jutsu, elemental no less. Blastwave attack or suicide technique though? One supported the theory of clones and both of them placed her far beyond the lowly genin she claimed to be.

Dispersing the attack with a casual Kaiten, Taiki activated his Byakugan vision and began searching for his quarry.

It didn't take long as a literal army of irritating redheads appeared, pouring down on him from all sides. Clones then, they were also moving far too slow to be any kind of experienced ninja. Though perhaps she was holding back like he was? He supposed possible, but given the sheer number of copies he saw it didn't seem likely. Shrugging he fell back into evaluation mode and launched himself at the nearest clone.

This one was glowing slightly, a nimbus aura of chakra hugging it's skin tightly. Some kind of full body chakra enhancement, but nothing he had ever seen before. It looked familiar though, he thought as he slid straight through the doubles guard and drove a knife hand strike into it's stomach. As his chakra coated fingers passed through glow and released a spike of elemental chakra into his opponent he recognized what he was seeing.

Taiki paused for nearly a second, almost laughing aloud in his surprise. The girl had made a technique worthy of the Hyuuga! If the old man had known about this then it was no wonder he had placed her on the team of the only available Hyuuga sensei. The girl had created a form of chakra armor! One that didn't depend entirely on a rare bloodline or impossibly complex fuinjutsu tattoo. Against nearly any other ninja the girls adaptation of the academy exercise would have caused the strike to slide right off of her. Most ninja relied primarily on physical force which the control exercise had been designed to repel.

"Amazing" he breathed as he plowed through another group of doubles. These ones broke into a viscose hissing fluid that burned the sleeve of his shirt and smoked before he blew it off with a localized kaiten, incidentally dusting three more charging avatars.

Side stepping the sticky death of a mud clone and shielding against another fire bomb Taiki immediately went into the 64 palms stance to redirect a dual burst from two clone exploding in stone shrapnel and a hail of kunai and gunpowder.

He had to admit her strategy was interesting. She was constantly herding him into the center of the field whenever he strayed to far and he allowed it. Her goal appeared to be controlling his movements so she could hit him from all angles and wear him down. Add to that her forcing him to pull out the clans signature techniques in quick repetition she was doing a pretty good job of it. It wouldn't work though, not only were the Hyuuga renowned for their chakra control and minimalist practices he had learned shortly before his Jonin exam how to recollect his wasted chakra from the air around him. It wasn't perfect, and there was still a loss of nearly 30%, but it made kaiten into something he could easily spam as opposed to a weapon of necessity.

Nearing the edges of his current vision Taiki broke off his musings as he noticed movement in the vicinity of his other students. Four chakra silhouettes' had gathered and appeared to be talking amongst themselves. _So, it seems as if they figured it out._ he mused. _I wonder what their plan is?_ he thought absently as he watched them split up, lazily dispatching another trio of clones, this time two armored clones trying to protect another, likely explosive doppelganger, and smiled.

Seconds later he found what he was waiting for. It began as a curious tugging around his naval, but quickly grew in strength with each repetition. Then there was an almighty tug and the Jonin disappeared in a puff of smoke.

.o0OXO0o.

Sarutobi Hiruzen, the third Hokage of Konoha stat in silence as he listened to his Jonins report. Extraordinary. Seven of the fifteen teams had passed. This had not happened for quite a while. Teams 1, 4, 6, 7, 11, 12, 13, 15 had passed, nearly half. Only Hyuuga Taiki had yet to give his report beyond nodding a satisfactory, though his body language spoke of mental strain so there was probably a reason for that. …Or it could have something to do with, Maito Gai, beaming in his usual audacious way and loudly boasting about his teams apparent youth, Hiruzen wasn't entirely sure.

As the meeting ended and the gathered jonin left, either through the door or with a flair of personal transportation jutsu, Hyuuga Taiki caught his eyes. Smiling, the old fire shadow nodded, he had been expecting it after all. When the last of the Jonin had left Sarutobi closed and sealed the door with a hand sign and waited.

"With all due respect, Hokage-sama, I'm less than pleased with the presence of your pet spy on my team."

"Oh?" Hiruzen replied, raising an eyebrow slightly. "Did she do poorly then? It was her first field test after all… Perhaps It was too early after all." He cut off as he saw the soldier in front of his desk shake his head in an angry fashion.

"That's not the problem, she did well. Too well in fact. She should be a Tokubetsu Jonin. I'm angry because you put your pet spy on my **gennin** team. She's arrogant, clever, far too powerful for her or the villages own good and she's clearly developing the mental instability of the more experienced operatives, something that will only become more poignant as she is allowed to progress. With all due respect, Hokage-Sama, I want her removed from my team and dropped from the course. All her problem aside it's insulting to have your personal spy placed on my team. Are you really that suspicious of me?"

"Tokubetsu hmm?" The elderly warrior murrured, seemingly ignoring the rest of his lueitenants, already memorized, outburst. "You really think she's ready for that?"

There was a pause as Taiki gave his superior a heated glare. "Not entirely."

"Explain?"

"Her skills show a rather alarming disparity in their development across the board." he stated coolly. "Her ability and power of her ninjutsu are both impressive, but limit her to close range clone warfare, requiring her to lure her opponents into traps where she can get close to them before detonating. The chakra expenditure of her methods is enormous and would likely kill even you to attempt them. Whatever you did to her it's made the girl a monster. That being said her array of ninjutsu is small, consisting almost entirely of exotics and re engineered academy techniques. Her genjutsu is either nonexistent or completely unused and her taijutsu makes me cringe. It's like she took the time to observe and monkey a dozen different styles and uses whatever come to mind as she's attacks. Her speed is terrible, her strength is what you'd expect from an athletic _civilian and she needs serious work on coordinating her attacks with her clones. The only thing that was impressive about her martial skill was her stamina. The only time she even broke a sweat was when I used the Hell viewing genjutsu on her. Aside from that she only carries the standard academy 3 kunai and her aim is reprehensible, she didn't even attempt traps and kept in plain sight the entire battle."_

_As Taiki paused in his tirade the other man spoke up. "And what of your other students? Surely they didn't just sit in awe at the spectacle."_

_Taiki grumped for a moment and shook his head. "They hid like they were supposed to and watched for a while before she organized them. Both were very obviously gennin in all regards, ninjutsu, taijutsu, genjutsu, traps, and so forth. They also had a few interesting family techniques I found impressive. The blond one, Tsukino-kun, used a family ninpou to warp light around his body, leaving only his eyes exposed and later tried to blind me with a full spetrum flare. Quite impressive for a gennin. The other, Makoto of that Kashiwagi clan, showed some minor extrasensory abilities and was quite skilled with ninja wire. He managed to tie me to the ground long enough for them to achieve their strikes."_

"_Interesting… Should be a fine batch of gennin this year then. Wires you say?"_

_Taiki frowned. While not entirely odd that Sarutobi sama would be interested in his subordinates techniques he would have expected him to be more curious about the Tsukino's invisibility jutsu. "Yes, is it important?"_

"_Not particularly, it just seems young Makoto-chan may be following in the footsteps of her great grandmother, The aptly named angel of death. When we first recruited the family to join the village they were a small dozen women led by one Kashiwagi Noriko. Her signature jutsu were based around use of chakra-metal ninja-wires which she used almost like a suna puppet master to conduct either earth or wind elemental chakra depending on whether she wanted to throw you around or tear you to ribbons. It was quite impressive."_

"_And you think he might revive his grandmothers style…" The Hyuuga instructor to be asked. "I'll keep that in mind."_

"_All Kashiwagi create unique weapons as part of their adulthood ceremony. She may not stick simply with her wires, or even use them at all as she grows. On to Ranko though, I want you to train her with the others. She's been a bit of a pet project of mine since I brought her into the village and it is to continue undeterred. Her rather constant attempts to infiltrate the entirety of the village was more an attempt of mine to control her mischief than an actual assignment, we caught her going about the spy thing on her own somewhere she really should have left alone. Idle hands are the shinigami's workshop, best to have her working for us if we can."_

"_Very well, Hokage-sama. As you command."_


End file.
